PULL ME UNDER - Warriors - Seventeen

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Seventeen

They had built a shrine around it. Thought it was a husk of some ancient dragon. It was a steam engine, off its rails as it passed through a portal and it had plowed right into the earth, cocked askance when it collided with a large stone, creating its own grave. Lauren felt compelled to sketch it, though the sight chilled her. She wondered what happened to the engineer, but it was such an old train engine they wouldn’t be alive now either way.

Wyatt told her about the place, and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. So, while Ddun went to vote at the moot, she threatened the man posted at the tent with generations of curses if he tattled and she walked off to find the phantom train to the southeast of the castle, near a patch of stunted trees fed by a winding river that drained the lake. Little animals with their winter coats half grown in cautiously prowled around.

She felt a cramp low in her abdomen, pausing her sketching to wince. Nausea crept up into her throat and she shuddered. Maybe it was stress. She hadn’t eaten anything yet.

Walking the perimeter of the shrine, she noted the primitive scrawls of prayer painted on the steel, the flat rocks propped up and carved with images of animals and men. Phallic symbols all over the place, not too different from any given graffiti wall. She climbed up the crooked side of the engine to peer in.

It was so well preserved there was still a skeleton inside, dressed the part and surrounded by dozens of tiny offerings, clay bowls of incense ash, coins, dried herbs. Mystery solved.

Back at her little stone perch she returned to sketching, nearing the last pages in her journal. Maybe Ddun could have one made for her.

Her fingers and cheeks were beginning to go numb from the cold and she decided to head back. The walk was pleasant, she ignored the sight of the castle walls, and traced her way back to the campsites.

Ddun had already half-killed the poor guard he posted to the tent, who saw Lauren first and pointed a shaking finger to her, mouth too bloodied to speak. She’d have to make sure he was compensated. How could she compensate for lost teeth? Not like the guy could go to the dentist. Ddun dropped the battered man and stormed to her, his posture shifting with each step from furious to relieved to furious again.

“Don’t…” a false start, he paused and breathed and flexed his jaw, “don’t go off like that again.”

At least he didn’t hit her. “Am I your prisoner?”

“No. But I thought—”

“Next time, I’ll leave a note.” She pushed past him, stepping over the fool at the door of the tent, pulled out a fistful of coins from a drawstring purse and tossed them at him before going back to the darkness of the tent and yelling for breakfast. Then she put her head back out into the cold, asked for Tanner, but Ddun only shrugged. She retreated. Then she stuck her head outside again and asked why he wasn’t at the moot.

“There’s no reason for me to be there.” He sucked on his knuckles, scowling at the ground.

Then she closed up the tent one last time before covering herself in furs, thinking of the derailed train, of the skeleton engineer-turned-shrine. Ddun didn’t come in.

***

Drumbeats shook the earth and shocked her awake, her plate of spiced sausage untouched. Tanner’s face burst unceremoniously into the tent and she screamed in surprise at the look of him, thinking he was some ghoul from her dreams but it was evidenced as soon as he opened his mouth to speak he had simply had the snot beat out of him, his moronic grin split from bruises. “Our clan won! Even more are going to fight under your banner.”

She didn’t want more people to fight. Didn’t they understand that? And his breath made her want to vomit. “Get the fuck out of my tent!” She clocked him in the nose with the silver plate, a solid throw, sausage flying everywhere, and he retreated humbly. She shivered, laying down again with the blanket pinned firmly over her head like a cocoon, refusing to acknowledge what the he meant. I hate this place.

The drumming got louder, and voices came with it. The noise vibrated the tent itself, pebbles on the flattened dirt hopped with the rhythm. Tanner returned with a vengeance and took her by the arms to haul her up and out of the tent, pointed at the crowd and gloating that those were all the people that were their kin now, each one of them. He was so beyond excitement he didn’t notice she had begun to cry. She wanted to go back to the husk of the dragon by the forest. “We’re setting up the city as one big factory. Fletchers and smiths. Organized, efficient, none of this tribal bullshit keeping down progress. Even some Peiransi are siding with us.”

“What about the ones that didn’t vote for this?” She asked through a sob.

He ignored the question. “The elders are to be advisers, all six of them will stay at the castle instead of just one. I guess I gotta learn their names now, eh?” He swayed on his feet.

“Where’s Ddun?”

“He’s, ah, busy. Why don’t you take me to that place you went.”

***

Ddun sat tall in the saddle, spear in hand and sabre sheathed, eyes scanning through his mask the opposing line of men and horses that had already prepared for battle while everyone else went to vote.

They knew.

He still wore the quilted coat, looking like a herdsman. All the men behind him were just as ill-prepared, but there was respectable bloodlust coming off them in waves, melting the frozen air. He wished Tanner could be there to see it, but someone had to be sure Lauren was kept safe, in case…

The man across from him with a ram’s head banner in red and purple had been the representative sent from the second largest clan—formerly the largest—a tall stern man named Felik, older than Ddun and felt if anyone should have the power to lead it should be him. His loyal kin were the ones who had fought Borga and Tanner.

The two men stared at each other from across the field, white stones crisscrossing the desert surface delineating the gaming grounds. It wasn’t Ddun’s fault Felik didn’t have a Tanner in his life to speak up with the bright idea of tearing tradition apart, but it was about to become everyone’s problem.

Ddun moved forward to the centre of the field to discuss terms, Rudda alongside. Felik and another man came to meet them.

“Where’s your witch?” Felik asked, helmet glinting in the sun.

“I decided to give you a fair chance.”

“She’ll be my witch for that mistake.”

So much for the terms. Felik barked an arrogant laugh and returned to his line of heavy cavalry wielding thick lances, looking like liquid metal had been poured over each of them, barely an inch not covered by scales on the men or the horses. He had been doing some serious fighting in the eastlands and had come straight to the moot, his chosen elder would have won the title of Grandfather if it weren’t for Ddun, and he was very sore about it. Ddun thought it was a pity they didn’t ally with him, thinking how good it would be to have the heavy cavalry on his side against any army.

“We will have to rely on our lightness, our speed. Archers will need to flank them and move swiftly. Try your best to annoy the piss out of them.”

Rudda nodded. “I will lead the archers. We’ll do more than that.”

They returned to the line and rode at a quick pace along it. “Archers! Forward!” Rudda called out. Every mounted archer obeyed, which was the majority of the men, and they were split into groups of ten. Ddun knew the weapons of the men left over would do nothing against the armour that faced them if they weren’t cunning. He spit, hos core burned hot with frustration over not having time for tactics.

Tanner getting his face beat in was probably the smartest thing he could have done that day, taking him out of this fight.

“Our goal is to dismount them. Spearmen will follow me. Once they’re down, that’s when you come in after us and sweep through them.” They all understood. Borga would lead the men with blades and axes, the alcohol still powering him and boosting his fighting spirit, his good eye lit up and ready to kill.

Ddun took one last gallop through the lines, thrusting his spear up and shouting back and forth to his men, wordless crows to encourage them.

Drumming returned to the field, the air and earth a pulse. Felik wasn’t waiting a moment longer, his warhorns blaring. Every muscle in Ddun’s body was steel, his sweat was mercury, his own pulse more fierce than the drumbeat, and before he could think the arrows were flying from his men to theirs as the archers took to the field, encircling Felik’s men. Ddun readied his spear and braced himself on the horse, charging with his men into the fray with a savage howl once the archers made a false retreat. His banner cracked whip-like at his speed, the feathers on the bridle whistled. He took down one man on his way through, a well-placed thrust hitting the gap at the armpit, Ddun’s arm shuddering through to his body at the impact after narrowly avoiding his foe’s lance. The spear was stuck, blood melted the thin drift of snow on the sand. Sabre out and Ddun gave a fatal slash up under the mask of another man unhorsed before riding back to his line and letting the archers run through and fire off more arrows. The noise was bone-quaking, the cries of dying men like devil’s music.

***

The siblings watched at a distance, Lauren able to con Tanner into telling her the truth of what was happening. Her heart was encased in acidic fear, hands clutching the blanket at her chest, and Tanner acted as if he were watching a hockey game. “I should be out there.”

“You really did get brain damage, didn’t you?”

“Too late to worry about that.”

“Those men are dying, Tanner. You’d be dead.”

“This is the first chance for Ddun to prove me right. Fuck! I’ve only ever seen skirmishes. This is something else.”

“Don’t you realise what you’re seeing is what your dumbass speech encouraged?” She went to push him, and he swatted her hand away. She spit. “Only reason this is happening is because of you!”

He spun to her, gripping the blanket at her neck. It was the second time she saw Duke reflected in someone else that day. Then he let her go with a shove, and went back to watching the field.

Her eyes were constantly scanning to look for Ddun, but it was too far away and too chaotic. The banner had been knocked off the saddle and it made it impossible to tell.

Their archers rode as if they were choreographed, firing what looked like fistfuls of arrows, riding in and out like ocean waves. She felt sick to watch, every fallen man was Ddun. She didn’t know anything about warfare. Maybe they would all wind up dead.

Not every man wanted to die, it seemed, and once the man fell that had spoken with Ddun, there was a retreat.

They weren’t the only ones watching, the entire city was there, everyone holding their breath. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not, but she could already smell the blood and shit from where they stood. She was too sick to be watching this. But she had to. She had to know Ddun would live. It seemed to take forever but it was only minutes.

“They’re going to go through the wounded, see which are surrendering and which die. We’ve won.” Tanner sighed, his half-purple face up to the sky as if praying.

“Take me back to camp,” Lauren said, hatred in her heart darkening her voice. “And I mean the one downriver.” They only took ten steps before she doubled over to vomit.

***

“You can join us or you can die. Which banner you chose to fly will tell me whether to kill you or not,” Ddun spoke to the defeated men. “I’m more than happy to forget Felik’s mistake for your loyalty.”

The elder who lost his chance at Grandfather spoke up. “We will bring you an answer by morning—”

“I demand an answer now! What will it be?”

The elder was stubborn and coarse, and said nothing.

“Stay silent and your life is ended.”

“I give you my loyalty,” one of the defeated men said. There was no pretence, just a desire to live another day.

“Aye,” another said.

Ddun looked down on the elder. “And you thought you’d speak for all the Dvarri, and you can’t even speak before me?” A nod to Borga, who held the elder down and swung his axe as Ddun turned to exit Felik’s tent. “One less adviser feasting on taxes in the castle, it worries me not.”

He didn’t return to Lauren until nightfall, exhausted and still bloody, every muscle screaming at him and his mind on its last whispers before giving up to sleep. He couldn’t bring himself to touch her, his hands too dirty, only taking off his blood-stained clothes and collapsing between the blankets. She curled up behind him, silent and sweet, and her heat eased him to sleep.

Lost in a great black void, no top or bottom or edge. Emerald mist swirled at his feet, turning shades of ruby and amethyst and sapphire, as he moved his feet he kicked up more of the strange mist around him until it was thick and suffocating. Monstrous faces appeared in the shining colours wrapped around him, dark spirits howling with laughter at his plight and distaste at his disturbance of their rest. How can he escape? He couldn’t breathe. Where could he run? He heard music, distorted and ugly. He reached out through the mist and felt nothing, disbursing the twisted faces into the fog, he tried to wave it away until the music became clearer, more fluid and natural. Then he opened his eyes and saw the dimness of the tent and shuddered a sigh. He was drenched in sweat. The music was coming from outside. He was too exhausted to move, could hardly lick his lips.

“You were dreaming,” Lauren was over him with a cup of water. He hadn’t noticed her before.

“I dreamt I was lost.” His voice shuddered. She lifted his head and put the cup to his lips before he took it on his own. “Who’s playing music?”

“Tanner and Rudda.”

“Have they slept?”

“Of course.”

“Did you watch?” He finally looked at her, her eyes were soft and solemn, her cheeks flushed, and there was nothing happy. Of course she had watched. She turned away.

“Rudda is teaching Tanner some poems, so he has something to sing that the people here know.”

“You’re upset.”

“Of course I’m upset. I want to go home. Your camp, I mean. The prairie.”

He was grateful for her clarification. “I’ll be here a while.”

“I can’t stay that long.”

Every line on her was the perfect shape, sculpted by some sacred being for his joy. The way the firelight played off her skin made her look like something ethereal, like something that if he touched might vanish. Some spirit he was blessed to see in the flesh. He hated to see her despondent. “I’ve been neglecting you while we’re here.”

“You’ve got other things to worry about, I understand that.” She swallowed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Do you…” She shook her head, hair tousling softly over her shoulders. “Never mind.”

“No, what is it?”

The music stopped then, voices muttering softly. Lauren helped Ddun get dressed and he went out to the bright cold, letting her stay in bed. Rudda greeted him with a bow of the head, and Ddun returned the bow and followed with a gesture, a flick of fingers that permitted Rudda to speak. “Glad you’re awake. Riders from the south.”

“And?”

“They’re right pissed,” Tanner informed him, “down in Kisku.”

“I knew that already.” And they hadn’t heard news of the moot yet. That was surely to rile them even worse.

“On the bright side, clans that don’t care either way are returning to the fields. They’ve done their business in the capital and are heading out, just like any other year,” Rudda said. “So the numbers we feared may be inflated.”

“We still haven’t formed enough alliances here in the north, before we head there to gather more. Lauren wants to go back to our camp, she wants to be with the women. I’m going to let her.”

Tanner gripped the sleeve of Ddun’s coat. “You can’t. What about Meired? Or a rival like Felik? You can’t.”

Ddun ripped his sleeve free from Tanner’s fist, face burning at the audacity. “She is the only one who touches me. Do you understand?”

“Wh-what?”

He had to remember, Tanner was ignorant of their traditions, but that only made Ddun angrier, the realization of how real this all was in a way the battle didn’t do. “I’m not a friend anymore. Not to you or anyone. Take her home, and that’s an order.” Then he returned to Rudda to discuss the aftermath of the fight.