8. The Dahars

The news about how the new arrival had saved three Shalussi children from a red snake spread all over the village, and when Dashvara and Rokuish returned at midday, half bent by tiredness, they found Orolf the blacksmith talking with the master-at-arms in the court.

They put down the training weapons, and as the blacksmith beckoned to Dashvara, this one came up, intrigued.

“Hey, young man,” the blacksmith began. “Fushek and I have been thinking about it, and I consider you need a true saber.”

Dashvara gave them both a half-smile.

“Only one?”

Fushek cleared his throat.

“The young man uses the combat techniques of the Steppe Thieves. He fights with two sabers.”

Orolf looked surprised.

“Oh. Fine. Two sabers, then.”

Dashvara looked at them, lost in thought.

So that means your children’s lives are worth far more than two steel sabers, he mused. That made him reconsider a lot of prejudices. But, to be honest, he had already begun to reconsider almost all of them.

The blacksmith kindly clapped him on the shoulder.

“I count on you to erase all those ugly snakes within three leagues of here, at least.”

Dashvara smiled.

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Orolf replied. “You will have your sabers in two weeks. And I’ll carve a red snake on them. They will be great.”

He pressed his shoulder with his big hand, and he left.

In two weeks?

Dashvara breathed in and tried to calm his impatience.

Two weeks is nothing. I can deal with that.

Fushek was looking at him with a thoughtful expression.

“I didn’t make a mistake. You have potential. And you seemed to have taught Rokuish more in two days than I have in one year,” he observed. “If you keep behaving like this, you might become a Shalussi warrior faster than you expect.”

He bowed his head briefly and went back into his house. Rokuish whistled.

“You’re only in the village for three days, and you’ve already gotten its regard. And Fushek’s respect. If only I had gotten the opportunity to save three children from a red snake…” he smiled.

Dashvara shrugged.

“More like: if only you had been there if I myself hadn’t,” he corrected him.

Both of them ate at Rokuish’s house, but this time, Dashvara had the decency of stopping by Zaadma’s house to warn her. However, he didn’t find his host anywhere, and he walked back to Rokuish, intrigued, wondering where she might have gone.

“I don’t quite understand why, of all the houses, you’ve chosen this one,” Rokuish murmured, as they walked up the path to his house. “I could ask my mother to guest you. I’m sure she will accept.”

Dashvara remembered the small house where Rokuish’s family lived… and he thought about Andrek. He shook his head negatively.

“I’m fine there, honestly.”

“That will get tongues wagging,” the Shalussi warned him.

Dashvara smiled.

“There are already tongues wagging because of the red snake. If they like, they can also gossip about how I’m guested by a…” —he was going to say, ‘Bastard of Dazbon’, but he contained himself, and he concluded—: “foreigner.”

Rokuish cleared his throat loudly while arriving beside his house.

“If she were only a foreigner…” he whispered eloquently. “But I see quite clearly that it doesn’t bother you.”

At this meal, Andrek behaved more friendly. The mother talked endlessly, Menara glanced at Dashvara repeatedly, with an innocent gaze, and the Xalya ignored them both as he was too concentrated on eating and on thinking about his sabers.

Right when they went out of the house, Rokuish and Dashvara returned to the stable to work and take care of the horses. The young Shalussi looked a little more willing to chatter, though his mother certainly had a good head start on him in this area.

“Whose is the black horse?” Dashvara inquired at some point, leaning against the fence.

“Nanda’s son’s,” Rok answered.

Dashvara felt a chill.

“I didn’t know he had children,” he continued after a silence.

“Mm, well, he does.”

Dashvara waited some seconds, and as he saw that the Shalussi didn’t continue, he thought:

If I had got a Rokuish with his mother’s spirit, I would probably be aware of all that happens in the village. But with Rok…

He cleared his throat.

“It’s a good horse. And this one? Does it belong to a Nanda’s son too?”

Rokuish’s head was gradually falling to his chest. So much training in the morning had got him exhausted, Dashvara guessed. However, the Shalussi made an effort to lift his eyes and look at the horse he was pointing at.

“Oh. Not this one,” he answered. “This is my brother Andrek’s. Actually, Zefrek is the only adult son of Nanda. The other son is twelve, and the daughter is fifteen. But women don’t ride,” he smiled. And he yawned.

Zefrek. So this one too.

“How long has he been your chief?” Dashvara inquired.

“Nanda? Since he killed Memfared in a duel. He challenged him, and he killed him. It happened about, well, about twelve years ago, I think.”

Dashvara nodded thoughtfully, looking at the black horse. A twelve-year-old son and a fifteen-year-old daughter. Did his father want him to kill them too? Just thinking of it made him feel repulsion. But still… deep down in his heart, he knew that his three brothers had died. Showag was sixteen and had gone to fight: he had died like a soldier. The others were even younger; but being who they were, it was very unlikely that a band of savages would have left them alive. As for Fayrah… Dashvara looked down to the ground. His sister Fayrah had been left alive, but actually, perhaps her future would be even worse.

In one week, the caravan from Dazbon would come to get the young Xalyas. They would pay a fortune for them; and then who knows what they would do with them. In one week. And Orolf wouldn’t give him the sabers before two weeks.

Dashvara clenched his teeth.

“Rok, that Zefrek, does he live at Nanda’s?”

As he didn’t get a response, he slightly turned and noticed that Rokuish had fallen asleep, leaning back on the fence. He half-smiled bitterly.

“Sweet dreams, Rokuish.”

He stepped away from the fence, opened it, and went into the enclosure. Slowly, he approached the black horse. This one looked at him with his dark eyes and let him come nearer. The Xalya gave the animal gentle slaps on its shoulder.

“I don’t know your name, but you remind me of Lusombra,” he whispered. “I’m sure you have the same noble soul as she has.”

The horse nickered as though flattered, and Dashvara grinned. After pampering the beast a bit more, he went out of the enclosure and decided to take a walk in the village neighborhood. He passed not far from Bashak’s, and when he saw the old man carving his piece of wood in front of the door threshold, he smiled and went closer.

“Is it getting now a concrete shape, grandfather?” he asked, greeting him.

Bashak shrugged with his everlasting amused smile.

“Please answer yourself.”

Dashvara raised an eyebrow and sat down. He took the piece of wood and examined it with dramatic attention. It had the unmistakable shape of a Shalussi man, and in truth, the piece was perfectly sculpted and seemed to be finished. The visage expressed a solemnity and a pride superbly rendered.

“Okay, well,” he said, “what I see is… a wooden jewel carved by the hands of a wise man.”

Bashak laughed.

“You really don’t see anything else? What does your imagination tell you?”

“My imagination?” Dashvara echoed. “Imagination kills, good man. Because it often shows wrong paths.”

Bashak shook his head, looking sad.

“What does your heart tell you?”

Dashvara gazed at him. My heart was shattered into pieces the past week, old man. What do you expect me to answer?

The old Shalussi tilted his head to one side and insisted:

“What does it evoke in you?”

Dashvara sighed.

“Eternal Bird,” he whispered.

He looked back at the piece of wood and its Shalussi’s solemn face.

“I see a proud man who looks at an empty future and struggles not to yield.” He shook his head, amused by his own, bitter words. “That’s what I see, old man.”

Bashak had frowned.

“An empty future?” he repeated. “That not exists but for the people who are dead or those who don’t have a will. A proud man cannot have an empty future.”

“Oh, really?” Dashvara smiled with no joy. “And what if the proud man were a dead person? A man with a heart as still as wood? What kind of future does a branch of a fallen tree have?”

He got up while Bashak was reflecting on his words, and he handed his sculpture back to him. Bashak shook his head and said:

“I had hoped to have carved a more cheerful thing, but things are as they are. Keep this dead-hearted man. And try to revive your own heart, young Xalya.”

Dashvara was about to move away, but his last word made his blood run cold.

“What… what did you call me?” he articulated, glaring at him.

With his serene, wrinkled face, Bashak was smiling.

“Only the Ancient Kings and their descendants, the steppe lords, swore by the Eternal Bird, young man.” Dashvara went ashen white, just realizing he could not have blundered more. The old man resumed in a quiet voice: “No Shalussi, no Essimean, no tribe that came later to occupy these lands and to expel the lords adopted their religion. The Eternal Bird, for many, is a synonym of domination, slavery, and repression. It’s the bloody eagle of a dark past. Since when does a Shalussi swear by the divinity that repulsed him to the most arid zones of the steppe for centuries?”

While he was speaking, Dashvara stared at him in dismay. His reason told him he ought to kill this old man, but his heart cried in pain at the mere thought of it. An old wise man who smiled at him so sincerely…

He suddenly snarled and approached the old man, his fist clutching the sculpture. His voice trembled when he spoke:

“Repulsed? The Xalyas that were destroyed last week didn’t repulse anyone ever. They were living quietly in their lands, even though these were more arid and inhospitable than yours. They were living in peace,” he hissed. “You can’t call a man who leads a few hundreds of people a steppe lord. The Xalyas you all destroyed were honorable men. They were decent men with an education and a way of life a great deal more advanced than this village of savages. And the Eternal Bird, fool old man,” he added with a pulverizing glance, “is not a bloody eagle. It’s the symbol of what we called the Dahars, which implies dignity, trust, and brotherhood. That’s what you have destroyed,” he stammered. “That is what I’ve lost.”

He remained standing, staring at the old man with the eyes wide open, and suddenly, he knew he wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t commit the atrocities he condemned. He was a man of the Dahars, as Maloven had taught him. The shaard’s words he learned as a child still resounded in his mind: ‘Any action that forces you to commit shameful crimes against the Eternal Bird is shameful, and you must avoid it,’ he had said. Dashvara bowed his head. My hand will be stained only with criminal blood…

But according to the tradition of the Xalyas, he also had to obey his Lord Father, and this one had commanded him, as a final wish, to kill the chieftains’ families. All their members. Regardless of sex or age. Dashvara hadn’t obeyed his father all the time. He had been recurrently at odds with him, and that was why they had never completely gotten along. But, this time, it was different.

He raised his eyes to the old man. If Bashak didn’t keep his mouth shut, that meant he was able to kill a man just because he was a Xalya; and, in that case, he deserved to die. But if he kept his mouth shut…

Am I really going to trust the goodness of a savage?

He drew a deep breath, and he took a step backwards. As if the move had recalled him from his self-absorption, the old man slowly got to his feet and approached him. For a moment, Dashvara thought he was going to get hold of a hidden dagger and stab him traitorously, but the ancient only opened his arms and embraced him in a fatherly hug. For some seconds, Dashvara stayed stunned. Then, he wanted to resist, but… the old man’s sadness was unmistakably sincere.

This man, he thought, moved, is a wise man indeed.

Suddenly, the pain that burdened his heart spurted, cracked, and shattered into shreds. Dashvara felt tears trickling down his cheeks, and he felt a little more alive. He made an ironic face as he was crying.

Oh… excellent. Who would have thought that the last steppe lord would end up crying on the shoulder of an old Shalussi. It is almost romantic.

He drew away before, blushing and passing a sleeve on his eyes. Bashak gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and said:

“I have been living for one hundred and twenty years now, and I long ago decided to give up trying to understand why humans act the way they act. But what I actually know is that it’s no use drowning yourself in your memories… even though it is impossible to forget them. Go with peace of mind,” he pronounced. “I judge men by what they are and not by what they represent. Don’t fear. I am a man with concrete ideas,” he smiled.

Dashvara gave him back a faint smile and inhaled noisily.

“Thank you. I, too, am a man with concrete ideas.” He took a surprised glance at the sculpture he was still holding in his hand; he saw the proud composure of the figure, and unconsciously, he straightened. “Thanks for the present.”

Bashak nodded.

“Whatever your future holds, I trust that you will find the right way. Let me advise you, however,” he added while the Xalya was taking a step backwards. “Don’t stay among the Shalussis. One day, you will accidentally swear by the Eternal Bird again, and I prefer not to think about what Nanda and his warriors could do to you then.”

Dashvara smiled, recovering his good mood.

“I will try not to stay here too much longer,” he promised. “And, if Nanda and his warriors turn against me before I leave, I assure you I won’t let them kill me easily.”

He held up a hand, and he walked down the gentle slope with a strange lightness in his heart. For some reason, he desired to trust this old Shalussi. After all, he who doesn’t trust anyone can’t expect others to trust him. Avoiding the village, he went straight to Zaadma’s house. The sun was already setting, and the sky was turning red. He heard a joyful song inside the house.

Bom, bom, bom!

The flowers, in spring,

smile like princesses;

all straighten and sing:

Bom, bom, bom!

Dashvara smiled, amused, when he saw Zaadma watering her flowers with a lovely love.