“It is not the strength of our leaders that gives us unity, it is the strength of our enemies.”
– Strigany saying Even as Blyseden continued with his briefing, the Strigany were beginning their own deliberations.
The crudely built amphitheatre where they were being held had been set up in the centre of their encampment, built by the Striganies’ carpenters from dozens of spare wagons and carts. The timber had been stripped from the vehicles, and hammered and lashed into two tiers of seats that went around a reed matted central clearing. Since night had fallen, a ring of pitch torches lit all within. The sputtering light they cast, and the shape of the enclosed amphitheatre, made it look like an Estalian bull ring.
Although there was none of the chanting or the stamping of feet that accompanied the Estalians’ favourite blood sport, the air was just as thick with tension. This was the first time that the domnus of all the caravans had been gathered together, and, even though there was space for three hundred people in the amphitheatre, the seats were packed, the grey bearded and grizzled domnus squeezed together in the stalls like children in the back of a wagon.
Only the petrus had space to stretch out. They occupied the eastern side of the arena, which was the most sheltered from the elements. Their black robes and glittering eyes made them look like a flock of ravens, who were waiting for something to die, which, tonight, they were.
The oldest of the petrus waited until they were assembled, before emerging from the shadows. The hubbub of raised voices quietened, as the elder glided towards the centre of the amphitheatre. He carried a staff, but, despite his age, he held it more like a bandit with a weapon than an old man with a crutch.
“My family,” he called to them, his voice carrying effortlessly to every corner of the amphitheatre, “welcome!”
“Welcome,” three hundred voices boomed, and the elder smiled in approval.
“It has done my heart good,” he told them, “to have seen so many of our people gathered together. To see the youth of the children, and the skill of their parents, and, of course, the wisdom of their elders.”
His eyes twinkled, and there was cautious laughter.
“Although it is nice to see you here, my family, it is a hard season that has brought us together.”
The faces of the crowd grew solemn. Many of them had lost friends and loved ones on the trek, and all of them had suffered.
“We are gathered here today,” the petru continued, “to talk about how to face this season, but we are also gathered her today to elect a Kazarkhan, a domnu of domnus, so that we may better face the chaos of the times ahead.”
There was a rumble of conversation, quickly suppressed as the elder raised his staff for silence.
“Are there any here who will not accept the leadership of the Kazarkhan we will choose tonight?”
There was some shuffling and some sideways glances but nothing more.
“So be it,” the elder said. Then he paused, looked down, and gathered his breath. When he spoke again, his voice boomed so deeply that it barely seemed possible from such a frail old chest.
“Who among us would be Kazarkhan?”
As soon as the question had been asked, a chorus of voices started from different parts of the amphitheatre, all of them calling Brock’s name. He waited for a moment, before responding to his supporters’ encouragement, rising to his feet and walking down towards the elder.
Brock was dressed in a purple tunic, which reached to his knees, and a wide, leather belt. His beard had been oiled, so that it gleamed in the lamplight, his hair twisted back into a rope that resembled a bull’s tail, and the socket of his ruined eye covered by a silk patch.
Even if he had stepped into the ring naked, Petru Engel decided as he watched his domnu step down onto the matting, there would be no doubting his power. It was in every movement, every step, and gesture, and expression.
“My name is Brock,” he said, booming out the well-rehearsed words, “and, should our family so desire, I will serve as Kazarkhan.”
There was a roar of approval from his supporters, and he stood, shoulders back and head slowly turning to make eye contact with as many of the other domnus as he could.
Some nodded. Some didn’t. None looked away.
Just when it seemed that Brock would be selected unopposed, the deafening shouting on the other side of the amphitheatre flowered into a roar of approval, and another man stepped down.
He was a great bull of a man, perhaps a head taller than the tallest of the men around him, and he was well built. Muscle bulged beneath his broad leather tunic and flared breeches, and, although his beard was full enough to be grabbed by two fists, his head was as smooth as an egg.
No doubt, Brock thought, as he squared up to his rival, it will be just as satisfying to crack.
“My name is Domnu Zelnikov,” the big man said. He waited for the cheers of his supporters and the boos of Brock’s to die down, before continuing, “And if my family wants it, I will lead you as Kazarkhan, lead you to victory!”
The chant started from the tier where the man had sat, but soon spread as others took it up.
“Zel Ni Kov! Zel Ni Kov!”
Feet stamped in time with the chant, and the big man beamed a crocodilian grin.
Already, Brock’s supporters had begun their own chant, and, as he heard his name booming form a hundred throats, the domnu couldn’t keep a wolfish grin off his face.
The elder, who had been watching the commotion with the indulgent patience of a grandfather watching toddlers at play, finally stepped forward, lifted his staff and hissed for silence.
Both Brock and Zelnikov turned to their supporters, and waved them to silence. Nobody wanted a fool for a Kazarkhan, and who else would defy the wishes of the petrus?
“I see two men, two Kazarkhans. Are there any more amongst us who would serve?” he asked.
There were some catcalls, a jeer, and an outburst of laughter, but no more volunteers.
“Then we have two,” the elder said, nodding as if he had expected nothing else, “but, as Kazarkhan, two men cannot take the place of one. Shall we vote, my family, like the peasants, or shall we leave the decision to the hidden hands of our ancestors, and the invisible and indivisible favour of Ushoran?”
“Ushoran,” the crowd roared. Their enthusiasm was so great that it hid the unease that lay behind most of their eyes. The Striganies’ god was, after all, not a god to be summoned lightly.
The elder allowed himself a small, cynical smile, and then stepped back. The two would-be Kazarkhans turned to look at each other, their shared predicament making them brothers in this moment, just as it would make them murderous foes in the next.
“Then, my family, we shall allow those who walk silently among us to decide,” the elder said, and the voice of the crowd died. “As you know, there are many who follow our caravans, many who would protect us for as long as we honour our customs. Sharp of tooth, some are, or twisted limbed, or terrible in ways that you cannot imagine.”
The elder’s voice dropped as he spoke, but, in the breathless hush of the amphitheatre, that hardly mattered. The terror of their lore had always been a match for the terrors of the Empire, and, of all the petrus, the elder was the most adept at playing upon it, like a musician on some terrible harp.
“Not a pin drops,” he continued, “without those who follow us hearing it, not a word spoken or a deed done. Ushoran’s legions are all seeing and everywhere: in the shadows of your wagons, in the secrecy of your thoughts, and, here, among us, waiting to judge.”
The silence of the amphitheatre was as complete as that of the void between the stars that glittered above. The only sounds came from the camp beyond: the sobbing of children, the hushed voices of their mothers, and the whinnying of horses. Those who were already asleep murmured, as shade passed through their dreams, and, somewhere, a man screamed.
“So, I ask you again,” the elder asked, the whiplash of his voice hardly rising above a whisper, “in the contest for Kazarkhan, will you accept the judgement of unseen Ushoran?”
There was no reply. Then, a man stood, his hair a white flash in the gloom. He raised his hand in salute, and shouted the single word, “Ushoran!”
The amphitheatre exploded as, wild with an enthusiasm that bordered on hysteria, every man repeated the name of their terrible god. The elder let them continue, until he realised how loose the joints of the amphitheatre were becoming under the stamping of their feet.
“Then so be it,” he bellowed, waving them to silence. “We have cast our die. Now, let us see,” he said, grinning with a bloodthirsty enthusiasm, “how they fall for our two Kazarkhans. Strip, my brothers,” he commanded them, and they did.
Brock, lost in the world of the ordeal ahead, unbuckled his belt and pulled off his tunic.
“Here, I’ll take it.”
Brock turned to find Mihai standing beside him. He hid his surprise at seeing that his son had braved the wrath of the petrus to step into the ring.
“Thanks,” he said, grateful for the sight of Mihai’s face before the contest began.
He carried on undressing, slipping off his boots, until all he wore was a loincloth. He had had it bleached white this morning, in case this moment came, but, now that it had, he realised that it made absolutely no difference anymore.
What did make a difference was the sight of Mihai.
Brock shifted awkwardly.
“Mihai…” he began, and then trailed off. “I want you to know…”
He struggled to find the words, any words. Why couldn’t he tell his son that he was proud of him? That he loved him?
Mihai saw the helplessness in his father’s eyes, and understood, and with the understanding came a sudden fear. It had never occurred to him that his father could lose, until now.
“Win for us, domnu,” he said.
Brock suddenly found himself unable to speak. Instead, he gripped his son by the shoulder, his fingers squeezing hard enough to bruise the flesh, and nodded.
Then, not trusting the stinging in his eyes, he turned back to face his opponent. The bald man looked equally subdued by the moment. Brock noted that, although he carried a lot of weight, it was muscle more than fat, and, despite his bulk, the man moved with the easy grace of a swordsman.
Brock, his own form as scarred and sinewy as a vipers, stepped forwards to slap his hand against his opponent’s.
The elder looked on with approval. Then, he bid them step back to opposite ends of the amphitheatre. When they had taken their places, he raised his staff and said simply, “One man leaves here as Kazarkhan.”
He paused, enjoying the hush.
“The other leaves as a corpse.”
The crowd sighed with what could almost have been pleasure.
“Begin!”
So saying, the elder slipped away from the two men, as they closed in on each other.
Brock and Zelnikov approached each other with a painful slowness. The seconds stretched out into minutes, as Brock, shoulders low and fingers outstretched, drew closer to his opponent. He could see the fear in his eyes, and it would have given him some comfort if he hadn’t known that the same emotion was reflected in his own.
Death in combat was seldom easy, He knew, from long, hard, bloody experience that death in combat was seldom easy, but death in unarmed combat…
Zelnikov made his move.
The big man screamed as he charged, a curiously falsetto sound for somebody so large. There was fear in the sound, and rage. Mostly, though, it was the desperation of a man whose existence has been reduced to the stark monochrome choice of kill or be killed.
Brock, his single eye widening, and his yellow teeth bared, leapt forward to meet his opponent. He slapped aside the punch that would have broken his jaw, and sprang to one side, spinning to punch the hard blade of his curled fingers into the man’s kidneys.
Zelnikov was an old enough brawler to have learned the painful lessons of an exposed back before. As soon as he realised that Brock was behind him, he fell, rolled, and bounced back to his feet.
The crowd roared their approval.
The sound goaded Brock, as he made his attack. He kept himself small and compact, hands held loosely to his chest, as he closed in on the big man, who jabbed at him with a punch.
This time, the blow caught Brock on the side of the head. The skin was torn open, and, as the first blood of the contest spattered across the ground, the crowd leapt to its feet, their voices merging into a wall of sound.
Brock ignored the sound, just as he ignored the pain, and the bright lights that flew through his field of vision like sparks. Zelnikov jabbed another fist up towards his chin, in what could have been a paralysing blow, but Brock was close enough to grab his opponent’s throat.
He felt the tickle of the man’s beard as he squeezed, snarling like a wolf, as his eye glittered with the savage joy of victory.
Zelnikov fell back, an expression of surprise on his mottling face. He punched Brock in the side, twice with each fist, and hard enough to snap one of his ribs.
Brock ignored the blows. His grip grew tighter.
Zelnikov, the first flash of panic shining in his bulging eyes, dug his fingers into the bundles of nerves hidden in his opponent’s armpits. Pain flared through Brock’s body, and his bared teeth opened as he screamed with agony.
Not that it did Zelnikov any good. Even as he adjusted his grip to twist a fresh symphony of pain from the one-eyed man who was strangling him, his strength was fading. His knees suddenly gave, and he fell backwards, twisting, so that Brock was beneath him.
They lay together in the dirt, as close as lovers, as Brock choked the last few inches of Zelnikov’s life from him. The bigger man’s eyes rolled up, as white as Mannslieb above the forest of his beard.
Brock bit down the pity that twisted so treacherously within him. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t killed before. The bones of his victims lay scattered all over the battlegrounds of his younger days. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t killed this close before, either, or this slowly, brutally, or painfully.
When it came right down to it, Brock thought, killing your enemy, before he killed you, was every Strigany’s duty.
Even so, the joy of victory curdled into grim determination as his victim’s struggles became as weak as the fluttering of a bird. Brock shifted his weight, and prepared to put him out of both of their misery.
That was when he collapsed.
Brock had never felt the like of it before. It was as if every bone in his body had been dissolved, every muscle flensed. He couldn’t even draw breath to scream, and even the endless rhythm of his pulse paused.
His fingers slipped from Zelnikov’s grizzled throat, and he rolled away from his enemy’s body onto the flattened ground below.
So this was what the elder meant by the will of Ushoran, he thought, as he lay, pulseless and unbreathing in the circle of the amphitheatre.
Ushoran.
His heart started. He sucked in a great gasping breath, and his limbs thrashed as his muscles twitched back into life. His vision cleared, too, just in time to see the grubby heel that Zelnikov was smashing down onto his throat.
Brock moved, but not quickly enough. He saw the calluses and spiralled grooves of Zelnikov’s foot, and then nothing but a blinding flash of pain, as it crunched down onto his nose.
Zelnikov raised his foot to stamp down again. It was a mistake. Brock seized his ankle and twisted, throwing the big man off-balance, and using his staggering form to pull himself up off the floor.
Fingers flashed towards his throat, and he bit down. There was a crunch of gristle and a scream. A fist clipped against his head. He staggered back and raised his knee, the joint thudding into flesh.
Suddenly, the two men found themselves standing alone, lurching away from the ground they had bloodied.
Brock shook his head, ignoring the constellation of dancing lights and spattering blood drops. He ignored the pain, too, the broken-boned, shattered cartilage pain. The only thing that he couldn’t ignore was the knowledge that, at the moment of victory, Ushoran had spoken.
His head lowered like a bull’s, and he watched Zelnikov massaging his throat. The bruises were already dark enough to be seen in the lamp light. So, he thought, that is the man Ushoran wants to win.
Well, to hell with Ushoran.
I am Kazarkhan.
I will win.
With that thought, he flung himself into a fresh attack.
He had almost reached his target when, with a whoosh of air escaping from his collapsing chest, his strength vanished, and he tumbled forwards into Zelnikov’s fist. Petru Engel hadn’t been concerned when Brock had met his challenger. He had known the domnu since he had been a child, and had no doubt that his ferocity would be enough to win the day.
It wasn’t until the petru felt the pricking in his thumbs that he realised that something was wrong. Of course, he had told himself, none of his fellows would use their craft to interfere in such a contest. In business, or war, or politics, then yes, perhaps, but not here. It would break every taboo, every principle of their lore.
Brock had collapsed at his moment of victory, and, as the hair had risen on the back of Engel’s neck, he had known it. Someone was willing to interfere with the contest.
As Brock had fallen, the petru had leapt to his feet to look around at his fellows. Most of them were straining forward, lost in the bloody struggle beneath them. A few, though, were glancing around, their expressions as shocked as Engel’s own.
He locked eyes with one of them, a hook-nosed man, who he had never seen before. The man nodded in understanding, and Engel knew that he had not been the only one to have felt the violation.
Together, the two of them returned to looking for the culprit.
Engel found that his gaze was skittering uselessly over the dozens of black-robed figures that surrounded him. He paused, closed his eyes and took a breath.
Then he looked again.
Brock and Zelnikov had rolled clear of each other to stand as patiently as animals in a slaughterhouse. Petru Engel searched the crowd, the faces that were twisted in fear, or horror, or good old-fashioned bloodlust.
Then Brock charged, and, as he collapsed once more, Engel saw his man.
He was thin-faced and grey-haired, and, although he was dressed in the leather tunic and sack cloth breeches of a butcher, he was like no butcher that Engel had ever seen. As the men around him roared and stamped their feet, and hurled abuse and advice at the two battling men below, this one sat as still as a doll, his dark eyes hooded, his fingers interlaced, and his features composed.
“You!” Engel yelled at him, but to no avail. As Brock had gone down, the crowd had leapt to its feet, wild with the anticipation of a kill.
Engel pushed his way through his fellows, tripping down towards the ring. When he got to the edge, he gathered up his robes, ready to leap over the edge, so as to race across the pit to stop this rogue petru.
Before he could jump, however, he saw the elder appear behind his foe. The men around him leapt out of his way without quite realising why, and he emerged from the crowd like a black granite rock from the waves.
The false butcher, all of his attention fixed on his work, had no idea of the doom that was upon him. The elder reached out, and, with a gentle caress, he gripped the back of the man’s neck.
The man’s hooded eyes flickered open, and his mouth opened in a wide “O” of surprise. Then, with a sudden convulsion, he collapsed back onto his seat, as dead as a bag of meat.
The elder looked up, met Engel’s eyes, and smiled. Then, as the crowd roared at another twist in the vicious combat below, he melted back into their ranks, unseen and unheard.
The domnus, unaware of what had happened, closed back in after he had passed, and apart from the cooling corpse of the rogue petru, which lay, as yet unnoticed, at their feet, the elder might never have been there. This time, when Brock recovered, he realised that it was too late. He was held face down on the floor, his arm twisted so far behind him that the gristle was being chewed up by the bones of his shoulder. Meanwhile, Zelnikov was searching for the arteries in his neck, eager to return the favour of his earlier strangulation.
Brock waited until he felt the big man’s fingertips, before he twisted away, throwing all of his weight into a manoeuvre that threw Zelnikov off him, even as it tore his arm from its socket.
The domnu howled with pain, and, his limb dangling uselessly beside him, he took his one chance to finish the fight: his only chance, his forlorn chance.
As Zelnikov rolled to his feet, Brock leapt forward, taking the blinding impact of his opponent’s open palm on his already smashed nose, and stamping down onto one of his knees.
The blow connected, tearing off a knee cap so that it slid down beneath the skin of Zelnikov’s shin. He fell, and Brock, stepping back, twisted a kick up under the black bushel of his beard.
Zelnikov’s head snapped back and he collapsed onto his back. His eyes fluttered shut. Before they could flutter open, Brock fell upon him.
Crippled by the loss of his arm, he had no choice in the manner of his opponent’s execution. This would be no soft strangulation, or swift snap of the spine.
This would be nothing so civilised.
Brock’s lips snarled back to reveal teeth that were as strong and as yellow as a wolfs. Half delirious with pain, blood on fire with adrenaline, it didn’t take much for him to bend over the grizzled hair of Zelnikov’s neck, ignore the taste of sweat, and bite down.
Brock found himself growling as his teeth ripped at his opponent’s flesh. Blood spurted, hot and sickening, and, as he swallowed it, he began to choke with vomit.
Still, even as he heaved, and the hot spray of vomit vented through the closed cage of his teeth and the ruined meat of his nose, Brock paused only to spit out the first gobbet of flesh, and fasten his teeth back into Zelnikov’s throat.
The big man regained consciousness, but it was already too late. His life was escaping through one torn artery, and Brock was busily chewing his way through the other.
All the big man could do was scream as he died, a terrible, gurgling sound that Brock would never forget, could never forget.
Later, Zelnikov lay still, his throat a red ruin all the way down to his pink vertebrae. Brock sat beside him, his one eye glassy, his features torn and bruised, his head and chest covered with Zelnikov’s blood and his own.
Then the chanting started.
It began from Zelnikov’s own ranks: a single word, a single throated roar that pounded through Brock’s shock like the waves of some terrible ocean pounding against a mysterious shore.
“Kazarkhan.”
Already, the chant had spread to the rest of the amphitheatre, and the assembled dignitaries were on their feet, stamping and pounding their fists into their palms to mark each syllable of the honorific.
“Kazarkhan.”
Brock didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to move at all. He just wanted to lie next to the body of his opponent, and wait for the ravens.
Even through the fog of his shock, he knew that what he wanted didn’t come into it. He was Kazarkhan, he was his people’s war leader.
He got to his feet, and the chanting disintegrated into a roar of approval. Brock grinned, bearing his teeth in a pink crescent that belied the deadness of his eyes. Then he raised the limb that hadn’t been broken in a salute.
“For Ushoran,” he bellowed, pink flecks of spittle flying from his mouth, and his one eye glittering madly.
The crowd roared the name back at him, and Brock’s grin grew wider.
The elder had emerged from the shadows to stand beside Brock. He saw that the man was bloodied, battered, dazed with shock, and half dead with pain, yet, he was grinning.
The elder approved.
Raising his staff for silence, he turned to the crowd.
“Ushoran,” he said, “has chosen his champion. Will you follow him?”
One word. One voice, “Yes!”
As if summoned by the unity of the Strigany, two men, sentries from the barricade across the road, thundered into the ring.
“They’re here!” the first cried, even as he leapt from his horse. “Averland’s men are here!”
The sentry was white-faced, and there was a dark patch on his cloak, which looked like blood. His comrade remained in the saddle, perhaps not wanting to move the arrow that was buried in the meat of his thigh.
Brock, half-naked and covered in blood, glared at him with one glittering eye.
“How many?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from somebody else.
“Thousands,” the sentry cried. “They came from everywhere at once. I don’t know how many of us escaped.”
“All right,” Brock said. He nodded, sensing the hysteria that lurked behind the man’s words. “You are safe here.”
Then he paused, gazing sightlessly at Zelnikov’s ruined body.
“Do you have any orders, Kazarkhan?” the elder asked.
Brock hesitated. He was dazed, sickened and dizzy with pain. He needed medical treatment and rest, and to arrange Zelnikov’s funeral. Meanwhile, of the tens of thousands of people gathered in Flintmar, none had a rank, or a task, or any idea what to do, and the enemy was upon them.
On the other hand, Brock told himself, I am the chosen of Ushoran.
Those odds were good enough for him.
“Make them quiet,” he told the elder, and then, in the nervous silence of the bloody amphitheatre, Brock started issuing his orders.