The Falcon

  Once she had drunk her fill from the creek, Yesugei saddled his mare and put his heels to her sides, riding deeper on towards the woods until they swallowed him.

  For hours he rode on beneath the grasping branches of the forest, but saw hide nor hair of any charcoal-burners along the trail that bore their name - or any souls at all. The falcon had vanished with the morning light, yet he was certain it still followed him - watching from above the verdant canopy. He kept his bow close, his eyes on watch around and above.

  The path rose and fell along the stream, winding through grassy knolls. Creeks fed the muddy water, turning it choppy, while wind stirred the branches in waves. As the day waned, rain began—light at first, then steady, then a downpour that battered down harder with every minute.

  Crossing a moss-grown bridge, Yesugei spotted the remains of a fort: tumbled stones, broken palisades, all half-buried in grass. He dismounted, leading his mare up the ridge. The main keep—a squat, two-story tower of rotting logs—stood barely intact. Lichen draped from the windows and twisted in the breeze - nature’s own banners over the fort. The rest had long succumbed to ruin.

  Tying his mare to a tree within the crumbling yard, Yesugei crept towards the tower, bow and dagger at the ready. He pressed an ear to the door—when only rain answered, he quietly slipped indoors. Within, he found an eerie contrast: dry, well-kept, almost homey. A firepit smoldered with embers, left untended for no longer than a few days. Upstairs, there lay a lumpy straw mattress and a crate with wine stains.

  Still, the door to the tower could be barred, and the roof was sound. Yesugei busied himself with blowing new life into the embers when he heard the footfalls tramping through the underbrush outside.

  The ambush came quickly, but he was ready. By the time a shadow was cast along the gap between the door and the floor, Yesugei had drawn back his bow. He loosed a shot as the door slammed open. The feathered shaft found its mark in the soft belly of a man wielding a war-axe, and a familiar face twisted in agony. Zayats, one of Stribor’s mangiest dogs, fell to the mud and writhed, gasping.

  Beyond the threshold Yesugei saw other shapes stirring, but he did not let them gather their wits long - he nocked another arrow and stepped out into the pouring rain, where he saw two more familiar faces. The freerider Yerch had swapped out his lance for a mean scimitar, while Pervusha bore a long-axe as ugly and huge as himself.

  From behind his helm, Pervusha’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise. But then he laughed, and his voice spilled from behind the maille-curtain cold and cruel. “You again, Khormchak? The gods smile upon us today to give us this gift.”

  “Draw any closer, and I’ll give you a gift myself,” Yesugei replied, swaying his aim between the two brigands. “Or do you still hunger for Khormchak arrows? Kangar or Qarakesek, both have keen eyes and aim. Come, let me show you.”

  “The little man means to scare us off, I think,” laughed Yerch. He moved right while Pervusha moved left, trying to surround him. But neither man charged - yet. If there were more of them, they would have been bolder, Yesugei thought.

  “You are only three,” he called over the rush of the pouring rain. His eyes drifted Zayats - already cold and lifeless, his hands still grasped around the shaft stuck in his belly. “Two. What became of the rest of your company?”

  “They found a new master.” cut in a third voice from the underbrush.

  Yesugei’s eyes darted to the source. The blood-mage Hecellon loomed out from the treeline.

  His face, already deathly pale, was now almost wax-like and mottled. The wounds he suffered during the Kangar ambush on Stribor’s column revealed themselves in every step, slow and painful. His right hand, impaled by a Khormchak arrow, was covered in bandages.

  “We chased off the horselords after some battle,” Hecellon muttered. “Some men chose to leave for Gatchisk, but this fine lot and I reckon that Svetopolk will pay well for his bride - regardless of who brings her. She can’t have gone far, such as she was.”

  “Yet you are here, and she remains in the wind,” Yesugei sneered. “You and your lot make for poor men, and even poorer dogs.”

  “Perhaps,” hissed Yerch. “But it’s your throat these dogs’ll tear out sooner than later.”

  Hecellon’s had distracted him too well. Yesugei realized the two druzhinniks were nearly on either side of him, and they were growing bold. He tried to swivel around, keep both of them in his vision, but the warriors matched his turn.

  “Drop that bow before I stick it up your arse,” Pervusha barked. “Maybe then I’ll give you a quick end. Otherwise the Yllahanan’ll wring out every drop of blood before I give you to the gods. What say you, Khormchak?”

  “No.”

  Yesugei quickly turned on the spot, and loosed his arrow at Yerch.

  The man had tried to creep up on him from behind, and did not expect Yesugei to turn - neither did he expect the arrow, which whistled keenly before it buried itself in his armpit, where iron plates did not reach. As Yerch flailed in agony, Yesugei heard Pervsha rushing him from behind. He drew his free hand for the hunting knife tucked into his belt.

  Before he could throw it at the druzhinnik however, a high, inhuman screech pierced through the din of the rain. Then, a dark blur shot from the trees and fell upon Pervusha. With a great woosh, a Khormchak hunting falcon struck the druzhinnik head-on, raking its talons across the warrior’s eyes as it beat about his head with its wings. Pervusha roared like a wounded bear as he stumbled off with a hand over his eyes - and through his armored fingers dripped blood.

  Yesugei scooped up Zayats’ fallen axe as Yerch staggered towards him. The footman’s saber flashed silver in a wild cut, and missed by a mile, sending its wielder flailing off-balance. Yesugei buried the axe into his exposed neck. Steel sheared through flesh and bone with a terrible crunch, and the druzhinnik fell with a gurgle.

  Over the pouring rain, he heard an incantation being called. Yesugei leapt aside and brought the axe in front of him as he saw Hecellon hurl one arm out. A crescent wave of solid blood scythed through the air, aimed for his neck, only to shatter into a million pieces against the axe blade. The fragments peppered his face harmlessly, and Yesugei saw Hecellon clutching his wrist. Draining his own blood was a tax too high to bear - the mage raised his hands to cast another spell, but fear and exhaustion won over valor, and he turned to run.

  Yesugei caught him at the last moment, grasping his stained red cloak and pulling him to the ground. Pressed to the ground, the Yllahanan extended his arm to cast a spell. Yesugei drove his fist into the mage’s mouth, cracking teeth.

  “You like reading fortunes from guts, don’t you?” he hissed as the Yllahanan gagged.

  He pulled free his dagger and buried it into the mage’s belly. Hecellon’s eyes bulged, and he gasped like a fish out of water as Yesugei twisted the knife and ripped free his entrails. The Yllahanan fell limp, and Yesugei left him to writhe, turning to face the last of dead Stribor’s dogs.

  The falcon squawked as Pervusha’s swinging fist clipped the harrying bird on the wing, and it flew off. When he turned, Yesugei saw the druzhinnik’s left eye was awash with blood. He looked as though he could barely stand, let alone fight. And yet he charged first, swinging his axe furiously.

  Before they could meet, a bright pale light exploded out of the woods.

  Yesugei flinched as the light seared through the rain, impossibly bright in the darkening woods. The air rippled outwards, shearing, and then the world broke open.

  From the shattering air a great Ormanli reindeer erupted, her antlers adorned with charms. It sailed through the air, hooves barely brushing the sodden ground - and then it charged, aimed at Pervusha.

  The druzhinnik froze. His one good eye widened, his breath hitched - and then the reindeer’s horns speared through him, lifting him into the air as if he weighed nothing.

  Pervusha screamed - an awful, gurgling sound - as the reindeer continued to charge. The spirit smashed him into a tree, showering the branches with blood. He convulsed, pinned like a doll, before the reindeer wrenched its head sideways, flinging him free. Stribor’s man splattered against the muddy ground, and lay still.

  The reindeer fixed him with a dispassionate stare. The pounding rain simply fell through its glowing form, but its nostrils filled the air with steam as it snorted. Then, as quickly as it appeared…its form fell apart, twisting away into a thousand tiny lights like cinders.

  Yesugei spied the falcon flapping awkwardly up to a tree some distance away. A perching arm detached from the shadows, followed by a lithe figure. The shaman slipped from a thick branch, landing quietly as a leaf as Yesugei hefted Pervusha’s axe from the ground.

  “What, couldn’t let me out of your sight for even a day?” he grinned, smiling through the battle-exhaustion. “I knew your faith was little…but it still hurts.”

  Tuyaara glowered at him from behind her leather veil. “You were easy to track, and I daresay in need. You should be kissing my boots for how I saved your ass.”

  “I’ll do whatever you ask, but there’s just one thing…”

  Hecellon had barely managed to inch away from the slaughter when Yesugei grabbed him by the ankle and flipped him over. The mage reached out feebly, but surrendered with a bloody cough as Yesugei loomed over him with the axe.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “God…god give me mercy” the blood-mage gurgled. The rain pasted his long, thin hair to his scalp and face, making him seem all the more like a corpse. “I’ll be waiting for you in hell, you fucking nomad scum.”

  The Yllahanan’s eyes burned furiously, and he spat a bloody tooth on the ground. “Go on then, finish it.”

  Yesugei obliged him.

  ***

  The rain pounded relentlessly on the watchtower roof as the storm grew. Sleep was difficult to find, and so both he and Tuyaara sat around the fire as he dried his bow and she tended to her falcon. Warmth slowly seeped into his bones as he worked, chasing away the chill of the rain-soaked air. For a long while, neither of them spoke, lost in their thoughts as they were.

  Yesugei broke the silence once his bow was dry and holstered. “Why were you following me?” he asked carefully. “Do you really mistrust me so?”

  “Trust is to be earned, not given at will,” the shaman muttered in reply. “Especially when we’re to trust someone tainted by dark magic.”

  “Your father trusted me enough. Do you doubt his judgement, then?”

  Tuyaara’s hard gaze wavered from Yesugei’s face, and she cast her eyes back to her falcon. “My father is old, and afraid. Afraid of the coming harvest, afraid of the coming doom. But more than that, he is afraid of losing me - and that fear clouds all other judgment.”

  Somehow, though it rang a different tune, the story was familiar. Tuyaara did not seem so much younger than him - their difference was only by a few years, if even that, but her spirit reminded him of his own just a few short months ago. Yesugei felt a wry smile come to his face. “So the daughter defies the father, and now you are here. What was your plan, then? How long would you have tracked me, hiding in the shadows?”

  “As far as needed,” said Tuyaara with a confident edge to her voice. “If you stayed the course, I would have followed you to the White City and sought my own answers. If you did not…then I would have killed you, and made a good lot of people in the ulus happier for it.”

  Yesugei chuckled. “It’s not me who is your enemy, nor your tribe’s. You know this.”

  He tossed an idle branch into the fire, watching it burst and crackle. A strange feeling stirred in his heart as he watched the wood blacken and crack. The Apostle of Tosont had cast flames brighter than the sun - consumed flesh like kindling. And yet three men who could have stood against the tide now lay dead and dismembered, carrion for the beasts. Yesugei sighed. Belnopyl still lay many miles away - too many to bear riding with a knife at his back.

  “If you will listen, perhaps I can ease your mind before we kill one another and die for nothing. If you won’t trust my honor, trust my self-interest—I have my own reasons to reach the White City.”

  Tuyaara thought for a moment. “Ardager spoke of a woman that fled the plains…you seek her.”

  “Her name is Vasilisa,” Yesugei said. He recalled her look of shame, and flash of her Solarian garment vanishing into the woods. Had she taken this same trail? “Her city is the reason for all this madness. Before Stribor’s bastards caught us, we’d been trying to reach her home - or at least, a lord still loyal to her father.”

  He met Tuyaara’s gaze, and saw her expression had softened. “I swore an oath to her. We are blood-bound. She saved my life, and I saved her honor. I know she’s alive, making her way to the city. If you won’t trust me to uphold your father’s charge, trust that I will seek her.”

  Silence stretched between them as Tuyaara studied him, searching for what truth she could believe in his eyes. At last, she sighed and shrugged. “Very well, Qarakesek-”

  “My name is Yesugei.”

  “Yesugei,” she continued. “I will trust in your blood bond. Not even the sons of Aqtai would break such a vow a second time, I think. But I will still accompany you to Belnopyl—lest another bandit try to split open your skull.”

  A small smile tugged at Yesugei’s lips. “I’d expect nothing less.” The tension eased.

  Eventually, sleep found him first, drawing his eyes shut with its heavy weight once he found a comfortable nook. Darkness came swiftly, leaving only the crackle of the fire, the falcon’s preening, and Tuyaara’s face—half shrouded in shadow, half lit by the orange glow.

  And in the distance, he heard the howling of wolves.

  ***

  When morning arose the next day a thin mist hung over the entire forest, shrouding the path ahead doubly with the shadows of the trees overhead. Yesugei awoke to a chill in the air, and he saw the firepit was snuffed out.

  Outside, Tuyaara was already at work loading her horse with saddlebags and pack - whether she had even slept the night before, he did not know. When he approached the girl-shaman and loosened his own mare’s reins, she said with her back turned, “I do not like the silence of these woods, nor this chill - it is unnatural, and we should move quickly. The road here will take us from the woods with good speed - we’ll find ourselves in more flat country soon.”

  After a quick meal from Tuyaara’s own rations of salted meat and flatbreads, they were back on the road, and immediately found themselves caught in a slog. The rain had turned the narrow path along the flooded river into a slick, muddy slope, forcing them to ride on higher ground deeper in the forest, where brambles and bushes grasped at every step. The bank at their side eventually began to sink and broaden once more, until they eventually came upon another narrow bridge of planks that rose just barely above the floodwaters.

  Tuyaara gathered her bearings there, and Yesugei searched for any sign of a rider having come through the path. The search was fruitless - the heavy rains and rising floodwaters had washed away any trace of footprints, save for a mess of tracks that were without a doubt those of Stribor’s men combing the woods - meandering aimlessly this way and that.

  Once Tuyaara had their trail, they rode on again for many long hours through the woods, exchanging little talk save for warnings of close falls or muddy pits in the forest. The quiet ride did little to calm his spirits, for Yesugei soon felt the same strange unnervingly quiet the girl-shaman spoke of. Where in the steppe and woodlands he once could feel small, watchful presences in the swaying grasses or black soil, when he closed his eyes now all he sensed was a terrible emptiness, like a foxhole or burrow left abandoned before a fire. The spirits themselves had either deserted the land, or lay hidden and silent with fear - which was worse, he did not know.

  Eventually, the late afternoon sun gleamed upon them through gray clouds and grasping branches, though its light seemed cold and distant. The land that yawned out before them beyond the treeline was grassy and flat, cut apart by a vast array of rivers which all ebbed and flowed into the mouth of the Cherech. The great river along whose waters flowed the lifeblood of commerce between the western principalities now lay bereft of trade cogs or fishing vessels - a black, empty expanse that stretched undisturbed almost to the horizon.

  On glancing to the east, Yesugei was able to make out the dim shapes of lofty, distant peaks that seemed to stretch from north to south like a knife’s edge…or perhaps the spine of some dead god, as the myths of the Klyazmites would have it.

  “The road turned us too far west, it seems,” muttered Tuyaara as she surveyed the land. “Or the mountain god has stirred since I had last seen those peaks.”

  The rivers formed a glittering net beneath the waning sunlight, leading from the God-Spine peaks. But it was the dark mire to the north that drew Yesugei’s attention as he surveyed the sprawling riverlands. A shiver went up his spine as he scanned the gray veil of mist that ran along the edge of the Gravemarsh. There was something there - he sensed it in the back of his mind, a feeling like a half-remembered memory, or an echo from long ago.

  He tugged his horse's reins to guide it closer to a shallow embankment in the wetlands. The land here was softened by rain and the rivers, and as he went on his eyes caught something in the muddy earth - hoofprints, a single set yet to have been washed away. He dismounted, crouching carefully by the set. Tuyaara dismounted as well, her small frame casting a faint shadow over the tracks as she squatted down and studied the pattern with disinterest.

  "And what does this tell you, khan of khans?" she smirked. "A thousand riders pass through this place every few months. More like than not you're looking at some messenger's trail.”

  "A thousand ships pass through this place as well, but I see none." Yesugei replied sharply. "This place is desolate, and these tracks are recent. It must be-”

  His eyes fell upon a gleam of white in the shrubbery ahead. He went on, parted the branches with his hand, and there it was - caught in the tangle of a thorn bush. A scrap of fabric fluttered faintly in the dying breeze, pale cloth marked by a black embroidered star.

  “Vasilisa. Her cloak,” he spoke to Tuyaara as he held it up. “It was her, see? Modkhai are not the only ones who get to follow hunches and call it tracking.”

  His eyes darted northward, to where the rivers gave way to the misty Gravemarsh. The hoofprints trailed that way, joined by the broken branches and trampled reeds of a charging horse. “The trail leads into the marsh,” he said. “She passed through not more than three days ago.”

  Tuyaara grimaced. “The Gravemarsh,” she said, as if the name itself were venom. “Do you truly mean to follow her there?”

  “She cannot be far. If we follow now, we might be able to close the distance - especially if she stops at Rovetshi.”

  “You say that like it’ll be easy,” said Tuyaara with a shake of her head. “The Gravemarsh is cursed.”

  “How so?”

  Tuyaara’s look grew distant for a moment, recalling some distant memory, or fable. “Did your brothers or father’s noyans ever tell you of their invasion through this land?”

  They had, many times over. After the crushing victory at Ongainur Field where the princes were scattered, his father, Nariman, and Talgat had swept west and then north, sacking town after town in their wake. The only treachery that had forced them to slow their rampage then, he recalled, was not any army or keep…but swamps and marshes.

  “They did not speak much of the Marshes,” he said slowly. “Only that they judged the mountains the better path, and took their armies there.”

  “The noyans were correct in their judgment,” Tuyaara spoke. “It is known the marshes are a dangerous path for all travelers unless they go about with a guide or some local folk, but for us, it would be even more perilous.

  “It is said that many centuries ago, before the names of either Qarakesek or Kangar were known, Rovetshi was once lush and grown with forest. Back then, the Klyazmite holy men of the north were close with the spirits of the land, and the wisest among them knew words and chants to move the ground and waters to the will of their gods.

  “It was this power they brought against some tribe whose name is now lost, when its khan struck beyond the Devil Woods with fire and sword. The shamans of the west made their stand, and sundered the wooded realm of Rovetshi with water from the mountains, drowning our kin in their thousands.” Tuyaara shuddered, as if she herself were there to see the warriors of old crushed beneath the surging waves. “It is Khormchak bones which lie deepest now in the marshes, and the magic that remains there today still remembers and hungers for steppe-folk.”

  Tuyaara tightened her horse’s saddle, and looked to Yesugei. “If it’s your friend and the White City you seek, we should take the path your father's noyans once did - along the God-Spine. Along that path we may ride for a week, and then descend through the Titans’ Pass into the open plains west of the city.”

  “You speak as though the High Road will be any easier,” Yesugei replied. “My father’s noyans lost men and horses aplenty even in the best of seasons when they crossed through. The Gravemarsh’ll be no kinder to us, but the trail is fresh now. I will not risk losing it.”

  Tuyaara’s jaw tightened. “You are too reckless, son of Aqtai.”

  “And you are too cautious,” he countered, nudging his horse forward. “But I will not stop you. Go to the mountains, if you wish.”

  He turned, his horse’s hooves squelching in the wet earth. After a few paces, he looked back over his shoulder, his voice softer. “But tell me, shaman - will you abandon your own mission so early?”

  Tuyaara glared at him, her small fists curling around her horse’s reins. For a moment, she seemed ready to turn and ride east. But then, with a sharp sigh, she snapped the reins and spurred her horse forward, coming to his side.

  “Lead on, fool,” she muttered. “But if the marsh swallows us both, I’ll remind you of this moment.”