God Within Us

As Yesugei stood in the midst of the cold steppe watching one of the druzhinniks butcher a horse, he could only be thankful to the gods the brutes did not capture Kaveh’s steed. The warriors cursed and spat as they performed their bloody work, and for their hard labor they only managed to come away with barely a third of the meat they could have harvested - ignorant of the choice cuts they left to rot.

Yesugei wordlessly staggered on before any of the warriors saw him smiling at their stinking misfortune. Ahead of him, the rest of the caravan slowly began to shift forward once more as Vasilisa’s wooden cage on wheels was heaved off the rutted path. The nine days on foot caused the freezing cold of the sunless days to sink deep into his bones - and his legs had never ached so much in his whole life out on the steppe. The road was grinding him down - slowly, painfully - and escape seemed beyond impossible even if the opportunity did rear its head.

But even if the strength to run did not desert him, he had nowhere to go. The falling ash had turned the land harsh and cruel, and if he and Vasilisa were able to flee and avoid being run down by Stribor’s raiders, how far could they go without provisions? And worse than the prospect of perishing from hunger and thirst in the plains was the other fate that the stone marker’s grinning countenance warned him of - being found by the Baskords.

If his bruised face did not ache with every twitch, he would have laughed. Where he had once scanned the warband and the caravan for any chance to break free - a knife left unattended, a careless guard whose neck he could snap with his bindings - now he prayed Stribor’s killers made safe passage through the plains. The boyar’s men beat him and hurled their mindless, bitter insults to his face, but they dealt nothing more than bruises since Hecellon was reprimanded. If the Baskords caught him they would kill him, and in such creative ways that only people of the steppe could imagine.

Soon they left the stone marker in the distance, and traveled ever deeper into the heartlands of the tribe that was lost.

A gods-damned fool you are, Yesugei’s thoughts came to him as he staggered along behind the rearmost wagon of the column. You could have been sipping wine surrounded by silks and song if you had just kept your mouth shut.

It had seemed an eternity since that cool summer day when he had cornered his father in his yurt during their ride for the Khurvan mountains. More than an eternity - it had seemed a whole lifetime past.

Let me go, he had said then, a young fool hungry for glory. No - not glory. What called to him more than anything was the chance for his father to look upon him as a son - for the White Khan’s eyes to look upon him with anything but that impassive stare as if he were a buzzing fly circling in front of his face.

Let me go. With two good men, a guide, and Kav to keep us from boredom I would bring Dagun back before the moon’s turn.

I will not fail you, my khan, he had said before falling to the White Khan’s feet. That memory stuck with him the most. My khan were the words he had said. Not father - never father.

And what do you have to show for your Great Khan? needled the harsh voice of his own mind. What does the prodigal son have to show for his beloved father?

NOTHING.

His mouth felt dry, and the whispers of the grasses seemed to hang in the air, bleeding.

NOTHING.

The noise of the open plains became too much. But when he closed his eyes to retreat into his own mind they waited for him; everyone.

Targatai’s eyes, bloodshot and bulging as the curse choked the life from him.

Khenbish lay ripped in half, his viscera spilled onto the black earth.

Tseren gurgled on the sharpened horn thrust through the bump in his throat, killed by his own body which turned against its master.

And then the worst of them all. Kaveh’s blue eyes stared at him through the darkness, kind and jovial. His mouth twisted into a familiar smile, and his voice came out so clear it was as though he had never gone.

What’s the matter, brother?

Yesugei felt heat trickle down his face, tracing a slow, winding path along his hollow cheeks. Kaveh's smile faded, and his face softened into a look of worry.

This is the first time I’ve seen you cry.

Yesugei opened his eyes, and for the first time let his tears fall free.

Nothing. I found nothing. Nothing but death - death all round.

“Ah, so the big, scary Khormchak does weep,” came a haggard voice from behind him.

Yesugei turned to see the old woman behind him, her back hunched over so far she was practically bent over double as she staggered on. The warriors afforded the old woman a small, stout branch during the march north - a pity that they reserved only for her out of some tiny shred of respect for their elders. Yesugei himself was surprised that she had made it this far, still keeping pace with the shuffling of the others when three healthy men and women had succumbed to the falling ash.

There was something off about the woman, besides her vague ramblings of the end times as all folk her age were wont to bemoan. He searched her wrinkled face as she grinned at his drying tears, and then he realized it was her eyes.

“You are the only one without hope in your eyes,” Yesugei remarked to the old woman as he slowed to match her stride. “Yet you still go on.”

“Feh,” came the woman’s reply as she wiped her nose with a crooked finger. “What good is hope? You cannot spread it on bread or wrap it around your shoulders. I would sooner have a good, warm blanket than hope.”

“Without hope you may as well die,” he replied, his tone sullen. “They will march you until you die - none of you will survive to Pemil in this cursed weather. Our only hope is to find escape - or else we march like sheep to the butcher’s knife.”

The old woman chuckled, then said, “So it might be, and the young weep and struggle against their fate, as they should. But you learn things in your old age, and from a life harshly-lived.”

The woman closed her eyes, as if savoring a breeze that only she could feel. “If you let go of it all - your soul can spread its wings and fly high above all your troubles. You need only to look down from time to time to see your meat and creaking bones still moving, still breathing, but your mind can soar high and fall away to a better place…”

The woman’s eyes opened, and in them Yesugei saw she dreamed of better times - perhaps of times when she was younger, and the winters were short, the summers not too hot, and the springs seemed like they would never end. “Once you find your better place…then you realize death does not seem so bad, especially for one whose time is so near its end. Because your body rots in the ground, but by then you are not there, not truly.”

Yesugei felt a chill run down his spine at the old woman's words. She has the luxury of retreating inside. The luxury of no loose ends, no one left to rely on her.

“I cannot do that.”

He remembered his words - remembered the taste of the last sip of arkhi as it lingered on his tongue, sour and tinged with iron. I swore an oath. I cannot die. Not now.

The old woman smiled her nearly toothless smile at him, her eyes gleaming with a strange cunning. “Then suffer, young man. Suffer, and live.”

They marched on - the young nomad of the earth, and the old wise woman whose soul soared through the clouds, far above the ugliness of the world.

***

The day grew long, and eventually even the mounted warriors needed rest to feed and water their horses. They came to a stop nearby a small stream that twisted and turned further to the west, where it fed into a great river that cut through the plains like a giant scar. Beyond the river’s northern bank, Yesugei saw the high grasses once more gave way to ash-covered forest - the boundary of the Baskords’ lands.

As he sat down on a small rock to catch his breath, he felt his stomach grumble long and loud. The warband did not lack for food, but even so they fed their captives only the bare minimum to keep going - yesterday’s meal had been two heels of bread and half a sausage the captives had fought over like dogs, and even that had only been due to a passing spearman’s boredom.

One of the warriors must have heard his growling stomach, for Yesugei saw a lancer reach into one of the burlap sacks on the wagons and ride up to him. The cavalryman leaned down and held up a thin strip of dripping horse meat before Yesugei - and it took all his effort to resist the urge to leap up and devour it from the man’s hands.

The warrior grinned as he waved the flesh in front of his face, sprinkling him with stinking blood.

“Want a taste, Khormchak?” the man laughed, holding the flesh just out of reach. “If you do some tricks and flips perhaps-”

A familiar whistle cut through the warrior’s words like a knife, and Yesugei closed his eyes on instinct as his whole body stiffened.

A moment later he felt hot blood spurt onto his face, and when he opened his eyes he saw the warrior leaning limply in his saddle - his eyes wide in surprise at the arrow sticking through his throat.

“Archers! Get down!”

The shriek came up ahead from one of the riders at the front of the column as a rain of hissing arrows fell upon them all, thudding into wagons, horses, and men. The screams of injured warriors and horses rose up instantly from all around the caravan, and then there was the thundering of hooves as the druzhinniks drew their swords and trampled along the column shouting to the others, “Shieldwall! Shieldwall! Get your shields up!”

Yesugei’s blood pounded deafeningly in his ears as he saw the lancer in front of him slip from the saddle and collapse to the dirt. He craned his head this way and that to search for Vasilisa, and saw she was wheeling confusedly in a circle atop her mount - looking for the archers, or perhaps for him.

The thrums of a dozen bowstrings now sounded crystal-clear, and the air filled with arrows once more as Yesugei grabbed a longknife from the dead lancer, then threw himself under one of the wagons. When the squall passed, he unsheathed the decorated blade and slashed at the chafing rope around his neck.

In three feeble strikes the rope fell apart - and for a moment he felt as though he could truly fly.

“There!” shouted someone over the chaos of the shouting, terrified horde of warriors. “There, in the grass!”

Yesugei felt the earth tremble as several druzhinniks tore out across the plains atop their destriers, throwing up clouds of dust and ash. He squinted his eyes into the distance, and saw a dozen figures leap up from the high grass and break before the armored charge - screaming and howling in Khormchak.

No…, he thought as he saw the druzhinniks rushing for the bowmen. This was not right. Even Baskords would not send out lone archers to attack.

“Stop!” cried Stribor at the druzhinniks’ backs, but they were too far, or too enraged to care. For an armored cavalrymen, a squad of breaking, screaming archers was too enticing a prey to let flee. “Stop, you fools!”

Another wave of arrows swept over the charging men from their flank, and before the Klyazmites were finished screaming beneath the hail another group of Baskords rose up from where they lay prone on the ground, bringing their resting horses up with them. The five druzhinniks that charged out were cut down to three, and then none as the saddled Baskord riders let loose another hail of arrows from horseback - and the armored pride of Stribor’s warband fell to the grass, each man feathered five or six times over.

“Wagons! Circle the wagons!” came the cry from Stribor’s lieutenant - the pox-scarred druzhinnik who had the sense to see the trap - and Yesugei scrambled out from his hiding spot before the iron-shod wheels could crush him.

All around he heard more screaming and the panicked whinnying of horses, the cacophony punctuated by the thudding of arrows into wooden shields and wagons as Stribor’s men rolled their caravan about into a crude fortification. Now saddled and rushing to attack in a thundering pincer, Yesugei counted more than two dozen Baskord riders clad in sheepskin robes with lances slung across their backs as they loosed arrow after arrow into the panicked fray. The arrows fell deadly and accurately - he saw one spearman take an arrow to his unprotected neck, and another through the eye slit of his helm before he fell to the ground.

"Torch!" Hecellon shouted as he struggled to regain control of his bucking palfrey. "Torch! Someone give me a torch!"

The elf's voice sounded so small in the throng of shouting, terrified Klyazmites, but one of the druzhinniks must have heard - he cracked open a wooden barrel and threw an unlit torch to Hecellon. When the elf snatched it from the air, Yesugei saw the oil-soaked rag suddenly come to furious life - casting a long fiery tail as the elf swung it around like a blade and pointed it at the charging Baskords. Another hail of arrows flew through the air, and against the iron rain Hecellon launched the burning torch with a low whisper.

Yesugei's eyes followed the spinning flame as it flew in a slow, lazy arc towards the howling Baskords - he saw some of the riders falter in the face of the sorcerer's magic, but their charge was too fast to change course.

In the blink of an eye Yesugei saw cracks appear along the shaft, spilling a red light out from within the gnarled wood. The light flashed as brightly as the sun, and then a deafening roar shook the plains as the torch exploded into a thousand burning splinters that rained on the Baskord charge.

The screams of the nomads and the terrified whinnying of their horses joined the chorus of the battle, and through the swirling clouds of dust and ash Yesugei saw several Baskord steeds now trampled riderless - their masters left shrieking and writhing on the dusty ground as the red-hot splinters seared through sheepskin robes and flesh as if it were made of wax.

Hecellon lurched forward in his saddle, coughing and choking from the effort of his spell. The Baskords' charge slowed only for a moment as those who were unburnt took stock of their dead and wounded, and then they howled with rage as their leader pointed out the sorcerer who slew their kin. Before the Yllahanan could manage another spell, a feathered shaft buried itself deep in the palm of his hand, followed by another to his shoulder that struck him from his palfrey. The elf was too exhausted to even scream in pain - he crumpled to the ground in a gasping heap, and was dragged along the dusty ground by one of the retreating spearmen who pulled him to the safety of the wagon-fort.

The Baskords laughed at their small victory, and then their leader rallied those who remained to his side to charge anew.

“Yesugei!” cried a voice that was high and full of fear. He turned to see Vasilisa charging up to him atop her courser, and he knew there would be no time to act but now.

The dead lancer’s horse was walking off and snorting in confusion, dragging its former master by the heel where his foot remained stuck in the stirrup. Yesugei pulled the dead man free and mounted his stallion as the rest of his captors rushed to save their own hides.

When he sat atop the horse, it felt more than familiar.

It felt like home.

The other captives huddled in a circle like sheep, too terrified to move. The mule that pulled the wagon their necks were bound to lay dead in the grass, and even the strongest of the men were too feeble to rip free from their bounds. Galya’s child howled and sobbed as she clutched at her mother’s tattered skirt, refusing to let herself be pushed away. The old woman stood and watched, clutching her gnarled branch as if she meant to clobber the Baskords herself if they came near.

“Please, help!” called one of the men - the blond man who had first spoken to him in the pen. He was fruitlessly trying to saw through the rope around his neck when he looked up at Yesugei with terror in his eyes. There it is. Hope. He still wishes to live.

“Take us with you!” cried someone else from the pack.

There were nearly a dozen of them, but he had only one knife, and the window to run grew ever narrower. He thought for only a moment, then threw the knife to the ground before the blond man.

“Save yourselves, all of you!” he shouted to the dirty, fearful faces that peered up at him. “The Baskords want Stribor’s food, not his slaves. Run for the river, the woods, and the nomads will not dare to follow you.”

He looked to the old woman, who was already rubbing her neck as the blond man cut her free.

Suffer and live…

Then he snapped the reins on the lancer’s horse, and did not look back.

Vasilisa met him halfway along the dusty, arrow-strewn road, and Yesugei marveled that neither of them had been struck in the hail the Baskords poured over Stribor’s men. The dust and ash kicked up by charging horses fell upon them in a swirling cloud; he nearly collided with the princess as they drew to a pause in the squall. Just further down the column, he barely made out the shining helmets of Stribor’s men as they stood in formation, banging their spears and axes against their shields as they dared the surviving Baskords to give charge.

“We need to break for the river,” Yesugei huffed as he squinted through the dust to see Vasilisa. “Let the starving wolves tear each other to pieces.”

“What about the others?” Vasilisa replied, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the swirling clouds.

“The Baskords do not lack for slaves, and if times are to be hard, they do not need more mouths to feed.”

Vasilisa studied him carefully, unsure of what to say. But time was running short, and the princess knew it - she hesitantly nodded, then turned her own horse towards the riverbank as the swirling dust settled.

They began their mad dash together, and Yesugei pressed himself low to the saddle as he felt stray arrows hiss overhead - some passing so closely he could almost feel their fletchings brush across his back.

The charging Baskords seemed to move as a single thundering wave at the Klyazmite footmen braced before them, howling “Kill! Kill! Kill!” at the top of their lungs in Khormchak. The spearmen stepped forward, shields braced as they prepared to meet the charge…and then the Baskords turned parallel to the shieldwall, firing their arrows so close their horses nearly crashed wholly into the bristling wall of spears. A tactic as old as time - and one which several of Stribor’s greener men paid dearly for as they fell to the ground filled with feathered shafts. Some staggered back to their feet, cursing and shouting - but others lay still, their first mistake in battle their last.

None of the Baskords seemed interested in pursuing the two riders fleeing from the battlefield as their formation wheeled around for another charge, but then Yesugei saw the princess turn her horse away from him.

Before he could call her back she was already galloping closer towards the circled wagons and Stribor, who was trotting his destrier in a slow circle as he rallied his men. The boyar had an arrow in his chest and one in his shoulder, and the Apostle's cleaver slung across his back bore three more Baskord shafts buried deep in its stone blade.

Yesugei jerked his horse to a stop, preparing to rush to Vasilisa’s side when he saw the princess ride up behind the shouting boyar and yank his dagger free from his belt. Stribor twisted his head around in surprise, but by then Vasilisa was already riding off with the Apostle’s cleaver in hand, its severed leather cord twisting wildly in the wind.

The boyar valued his own skin over that of his liege lady after all - he bellowed after Vasilisa, but remained by the safety of the shieldwall as the Baskords turned to charge once more.

When she reached him, Vasilisa defiantly turned her face from his furious gaze and put her heels to her horse’s side. “I could not let him keep it. Not while we still need proof of what’s coming for us all.”

Yesugei bit back a scathing reply. They would have all the time in the world to argue once they were free and in the safety of the rolling, endless woods. At his back, he heard the battle raging - an endless, single chorus of twanging bowstrings, flying arrows, and screams of terror, agony, and death. Rising over them all was the sound of thundering hooves pounding across the steppe - and Yesugei felt his chest tighten as he realized he heard hoofbeats drawing closer behind him.

He caught a glimpse of the pursuing Baskord horseman to his side just as he was at full draw - and then it was too late to do anything but hold on. The nomad's arrow whistled through the air, and his stallion screamed and slipped from its gallop as the feathered shaft took it in the side.

His whole world tilted violently for a moment that seemed like it would never end - and then both he and the stallion came crashing down.

The taste of blood sprang to his mouth, and when he opened his eyes he saw the horse archer that had shot his stallion down was drawing closer - eager to capture easy prey as the rest of his comrades pinned down Stribor's men. Yesugei tried to turn over on the ashen ground, but the weight of his collapsed horse pinned him and sent a bolt of agony through his crushed legs.

Vasilisa…Vasilisa…

His breath rattled in his ears as he turned this way and that, gritting through the pain as his blurry vision danced across the open steppe. He saw a courser in the distance - dapple-grey - and its rider - a spotty figure in a yellow mantle decorated with pale suns that fluttered in the wind.

He saw her look back and turn her horse, long, gray blade in hand.

“NO!” he bellowed, the cords in his voice straining as he struggled to yell across the plains. “Vasilisa, run! RUN!”

He did not know whether she heard him, but it was all he could do. With the last of his strength he tried to drag himself out from the under heaving, barely-alive stallion - but it was no use. He let himself sink to the grass, and let his breathing slow as he brushed one hand along the dry, cracked earth.

The Baskord horseman's shadow loomed over him, and he heard the rider give a harsh laugh, followed by a surly growl, "You are far from home, Qarakesek."

The last thing he remembered seeing was a flake of ash coming to rest on his open hand, and then he closed his eyes as the Baskord drew closer, knife in hand.

The ash came down and down - its fall neverending.

I swore an oath.

I cannot die.

Not now.