The Prince, the Ox, and the Crow

  The pale sun sank ahead of Yesugei and Tuyaara as they rode onwards into the Gravemarsh. Soon, the dense array of sentinel trees gave way to patches of flat, wet bogs, hidden by tall grasses and the thickening mists. Eventually the trees disappeared, and the dirt road soon followed suit - swallowed by black, brackish waters or turned to mud. The Gravemarsh awaited them, and then swallowed them whole.

  It was not long before Yesugei felt himself nearly completely lost amidst the hanging mists. The land, shrouded in its gray sea, appeared to stretch out unnaturally. The wooden causeway dipped and sank in several places, turning their passage into a wet, miserable affair as swarms of black flies beat about them incessantly. The hanging reeds and fingers of vines whispered, but they felt no wind.

  "It's the land, can't you hear it whispering?” spoke Tuyaara, her voice barely above a whisper itself. "We should not be here.”

  "Quiet down, will you?" Yesugei hissed as he glanced down from the saddle. There, pressed deep into the ground, several footprints followed behind what could only be a horse's trail. Vasilisa. She could only have passed through a day or two ago. And yet the footprints - were they followers, or pursuers? He supposed the worst was to be believed, moreso with Stribor's men combing the land.

  "Leave it to a son of Aqtai-khan to think himself above such things as spirits,” Tuyaara continued to grumble. "And if they do not get us, then the mud shall.”

  The Gravemarsh certainly did not lack for mud. Yesugei went on, and did not reply to the girl-shaman - and despite her grumbling, the girl-shaman did not leave. They went on slowly, sticking close in line along the causeway as the brackish pools expanded into vast, fetid ponds, and day gave way to night.

  When the first of the lights appeared, Yesugei had thought it to be a traveller's lantern. But when he turned to show Tuyaara, the light had disappeared. At first he thought it to be some trick of the waning light on the waters or some illness of the marsh fumes, but as they went on, more and more lights made themselves known, following him like gleaming eyes in the dark.

  Yesugei did not know how far he had strayed by the time he realized the hanging mists had risen as a wall all about him - and when he realized Tuyaara had disappeared from sight. His horse nickered and shook its head, beating one hoof against the ground.

  The first voice was a whisper, like the wind playing along the reeds. Soon however, it swelled with the tones from a hundred more throats, trembling up from the stagnant pools. Whispers, wails, cries for succour…a stream of sounds as formless as the mists, occasionally forming into grim, terrified cries. His mare began to rear, and it was all Yesugei could do to stop the beast from bolting as the voices and their lights began to rise up and out from the waters.

  The nomad princeling whirled about in search of the girl-shaman. The lights about him were legion; they flickered and danced and swirled, and from their whispers and howls Yesugei heard the cry, "A heart! A heart! A heart!”

  He drew his sword as the cry grew louder, the dancing of the lights more fervent. In the distance he thought he could make out the calls of Tuyaara, but her voice was almost completely swallowed by the chanting and the mist.

  "Tuyaara!" he cried back. "Where are you?”

  "Here!" came one voice - high and crystal clear above the others - but not that of the girl-shaman.

  When he pointed his sword at the hanging lights, he suddenly saw a face appear from the gloom. A beautiful face, a sad face, pale as the moon itself. With a breath, the rest of the lights settled, and the mists parted overhead.

  A stab of moonlight shone through the hanging gloom, illuminating the pale face and form of a proud, sad man - no older than twenty years, and yet with the eyes of one who had seen a thousand. He wore a kaftan of golden scales, and a peaked hat of feathers and gold that looked deathly cold to the touch. The other dancing lights began to coalesce as well, gaining form as men and women, young and old. A forgotten people from a forgotten time - long before Khormchaks and Qarakesek - and they surrounded him, glaring with silver eyes. Dead eyes.

  "I have been waiting for you.” spoke the prince as he paced forwards, his boots gliding silently over the still, silver pools.

  "You are the tribe my shaman spoke of," Yesugei whispered, his eyes darting here and there as he took in all those who surrounded him. None were armed, but their glares set him uneasy all the same. "You drowned in these waters, five hundred years ago.”

  "But our souls remain," spoke the prince. "You know this. That is the truth of all our kin. All our blood.”

  The prince's voice was heavy, lulling…like staring into the Jigai river on a hot midsummer day. And the others around them began to draw nearer. Yesugei did not drop his sword, but neither did he raise it as the prince drew closer. “The Eternal Sky awaits us - it has awaited us for so many years. And it is so cold here...so cold.”

  As the prince drew closer, Yesugei felt a strong cold wash over him.

  The prince’s clothes were soaking wet, and up close the golden scales were tarnished and beaten by the centuries. And behind the silver light…Yesugei saw the prince’s face was hollowed, the flesh of his face worn and riddled with holes.

  The stench of death and rot brought tears to Yesugei’s eyes. But as he stepped away, wo cold hands grasped around his arms. Then four. Then a dozen. Before he could pull away, the tribesmen brought him down. A dozen more hands sprouted from the sucking mud underfoot, pinning him to the ground with fingers as cold and unrelenting as iron.

  Chilling nails bit deep into his flesh, and there rose that cry again from the ghostly tribe, “Your heart! Your heart! Your heart!”. The flesh of the prince’s face fell apart before Yesugei’s eyes as he bent down to trace a skeletal finger over Yesugei’s chest.

  “The Eternal Sky awaits us…and we have awaited a vessel,” whispered the dead prince. “One of the steppe to bring us home. To carry us back to the land of our kin. We will take your heart, and you will walk until your feet bleed. Until your body withers and turns to dust. And when you die in the grasses of our ancestors…then we will all be free…”

  “Take his heart!” went up the cry from the tribe. “Take his heart and let us be free!”

  The prince's finger rested over his scarred breast - and then he pushed hard. A cold spike thrust into his heart, filling his whole chest with ice and frost. Yesugei tried to breathe, but his lungs were filled with water, and all he could do was choke as the lights and the spectres danced overhead.

  But then, something else stirred.

  A spark - a faint warmth like an ember beneath ash, awakening in his heart. The warmth flared into a rush of heat, spreading and consuming the dread cold. Yesugei shook, and strained anew against the hands that held him to the ground. His lungs were on fire, every breath at once painful and alive - and when he opened his eyes, he saw the prince lurching back. The air was filled with the hiss and crackle of fire, and Yesugei saw black flames licking out from his chest, twisting and hissing like serpents.

  The prince of the Gravemarsh was aflame. The black fire devoured his form whole, and the prince could only scream. "Claimed!" he screeched. "Claimed by another! One more foul, one more beautiful, one more terrible!”

  The fire spread like a living thing; black cinders drifted in every direction, setting new fires wherever they touched. Soon, the whole forgotten tribe was aflame, dancing and shrieking as they scattered. The heartbeat of molten iron drove Yesugei staggering to his feet, and he snatched up his sword where it lay in the muck before bolting through the thinning mist. The black flames followed in his wake, devouring the spectral forms that hounded after him from the corners of his vision.

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  His horse nearly crushed him as it appeared out of the mist, wild-eyed and stamping at the ground, its reins stuck fast on the branches of a felled tree. Yesugei threw himself forward, freeing the beast and hauling himself into the saddle as the spirits clawed their way across the muck towards them. He dug his heels into the panicking beast's sides, and took off across the marsh, praying with every gallop that the ground held firm. The screaming hounded close behind, but he dared not look back.

  Flying across the Gravemarsh, Tuyaara appeared out from the mists like an ill dream, nearly colliding head-on with him.

  The girl-shaman's face was pale as milk, and her brow plastered with sweat-slicked hair. In one hand she held a lit torch. Before Yesugei could shout to her, the shaman cast the flaming brand past him, sending up another round of agonized screams. "Ride!” she shouted, kicking her heels as the two of them shot down the causeway.

  Drifting along either side of the narrow road, more pale lights followed after them - they were keeping a frightening pace, unafraid or uncaring of the flames. Tuyaara lit another torch and slashed down at their grasping hands, carving arcs of red and orange through the gray.

  Eventually the mists began to thin again, and the ground became more certain. The hanging lights fell back into the distance as the two Khormchaks reached the southern edge of the Gravemarsh, then disappeared altogether when the mists closed in about them.

  Just as the fire in his lungs and heart died down to a hard, bitter ache, Yesugei's world was taken again by pain and stars as Tuyaara laid her whip about his face.

  "You blind, cursed fool!" she spat bitterly. "Did I not tell you of the dangers in that marsh, the spirits that dwelled there? Heavens, I should have let them drown you in that filth!”

  Yesugei said nothing.

  He turned his gaze downward, bringing one hand to his chest. Beneath his robes, his chest throbbed faintly from the pain of the dead prince’s claw, but the black flames had receded. His robes were unscorched, as if nothing had happened at all. For a long while, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the uneasy shifting of their horses, and the faint rustle of wind in the reeds. Finally, Tuyaara spoke once more.

  “What did you do back there?” she asked. “What kind of black magic were those flames?”

  Yesugei looked at her, meeting her gaze. “It was this.” He placed a hand over his silent heart, and the scarred flash around it. “A crystal of your people. Vasilisa gave it to me - it saved my life once, and now again.”

  Tuyaara looked at the crystal with disdain, her expression hard and unyielding. “It is an ill magic inside of you, princeling,” she said bitterly. “Worse than the spirits of the Gravemarsh, even. How long until those flames consume your heart, I wonder?”

  Yesugei waved her off. “I’m already dead. It’s saving the rest of the living that I’m concerned with - once this business of demons and ashen skies is settled, then you can give me all the grief you wish. But for now, I’ve been saved twice by this power - so let it be.”

  He looked out over the horizon, toward the distant peaks of the God-Spine. The mountains seemed impossibly far now, their promise of safety mocking. The day had almost completely bled away on the folly in the marshes, and the road east was darkening by the minute.

  “For now…we go on,” he spoke at length to Tuyaara. “Lead the way to the High Road. We’ll take the mountains.”

  The girl-shaman looked back at him, her grip on the reins tightening. After a moment, she nodded. “You’ll follow this time, khan of khans?”

  “I’ll follow,” Yesugei said, his tone weary but firm.

  Without another word, Tuyaara sullenly turned her horse, guiding it eastward toward the waiting shadows of the mountains. Yesugei lingered a moment longer, casting one last glance back at the marsh. The mist hung heavy, swallowing all trace of their passage. Then he clenched his jaw, spurred his horse onward, and followed after the girl-shaman into the growing dark.

  The Gravemarsh had defeated them.

  ***

  As dusk neared and the gray skies turned ever darker over the road, the mountains slowly disappeared before their eyes. The jagged slopes gradually blended in with the darkness of the coming night, until only the highest peaks could be seen by the dim light of the moon.

  In the growing darkness, Yesugei spotted in the distance a flickering flame. Silhouetted against a meager campfire two men sat grilling fish, their arms and armor laid against the trunk of an old, proud willow tree beneath whose branches the men camped.

  The older warrior was bald and had a belly that strained at the laces of his tunic. The younger one, though not by much, was skinny as the willow branches, with a hooked nose and a messy wave of black hair that fell to his shoulders. The sound of their approaching hooves roused the two. Yesugei halted his mare as he spotted their stacked armor, and the blue griffon of Gatchisk that leered back.

  Tuyaara stayed a distance behind him, her hand straying to the bow tucked in her saddle as the younger warrior approached.

  "Traveler, or brigand?" the black-haired warrior called with an easy smile. "For the first, we've fire and fish to share. For the second, we've no coin and little else to steal - only rusted armor and broken blades."

  "I could ask much the same," Yesugei replied, eyeing them warily. He recognized neither from Stribor's band, but warriors far from lord and home were dangerous all the same. "But we are travellers, as you were first to ask."

  The younger warrior nodded. "As your kind are like to do…though it's been ages since we've seen you shy Kangar stray beyond the plains, isn't that right, friend?"

  The older warrior turned the fish on their spits, and gave a hacking cough before replying, "Aye, and even longer since they came upon this road."

  "Then it must be something interesting that brings folk of the steppe into the shadow of the mountains," grinned the younger warrior. "Well then traveller…come, share our fire. Are you hungry?"

  The growling pit in Yesugei's stomach was. The provisions Tuyaara had packed were too scarce to see them both through the God-Spine - if the journey were as treacherous as told in the noyans’ stories. But wariness made him take pause.

  "Armed men on the road are a dangerous prospect," he called back. "I would have your names."

  In truth, the more he looked, the less either seemed threatening. Even sitting seemed a labor for the older one, and the younger man was a skinny wisp. Their armor was battered leather and maille, their weapons a studded club and a sword with a chipped blade. If it came to blows, he was sure even Tuyaara could handily deal with them unless taken by cunning.

  "I am called Bykov," announced the older warrior with a chuckle, slapping his belly. "Named after the ox - strong and mighty! My comrade is Kargasha, named after the crows - though you’ll find no wisdom from him, just chatter.”

  Kargasha sneered. “And I dare say I’ve never seen an ox half as fat, or half as stupid!”

  The two bickered, Bykov jabbing a grease-covered spit like a dagger. Yesugei gave a thin smile.

  "I would gladly share your fire," he spoke over their two warriors’ growing argument. "My sister and I thank you for your kindness.”

  They fell silent. Kargasha, his cheeks flushed with anger - then embarrassment - bowed his head. “Apologies…it’s been a rough road, and ill weather makes for ill temper, as my father used to say.”

  Yesugei set his bow against the willow trunk, and by the time he and Tuyaara sat by the fire, the fish were crisp and greasy. They ate in comfortable silence for a while, shielded from the looming chill by the tree’s hanging branches. Bykov ate greedily, a skewer in each hand, while Kargasha carefully picked off the last silver scales before biting.

  “If you're heading for the mountain paths, we share the same destination,” Kargasha said as he started his second skewer. “The roads are perilous, and there’s war in the wind. Perhaps we could travel together.”

  Yesugei started to reply, but Tuyaara spoke first. “We thank you for your offer, warrior, but we ride quickly, and you are on foot.”

  “Our feet serve us well,” Bykov insisted. “The mountains are our home, born and raised. Past the Blackhand Gate, the paths are narrow and too treacherous for most men, nevermind horses. Your kin lost some thousand good mounts trying to brave the peaks when last they came by there.”

  “And you would guide us?” Yesugei interrupted, a suspicious smile on his lips. “To what do we owe this kindness?”

  “Nothing, except keen eyes to keep watch,” Kargasha replied. “Roads these days are perilous for all, and beasts come down from the woods like never before.”

  “Surely two brave baghatur need not fear such things?”

  “Two, perhaps not,” said Kargasha. “Four…well, we could be doubly certain.”

  The warrior cast his chewed-down stick into the fire, where it flared up instantly. “Well, perhaps you can think on it come tomorrow. For now, one of you lot take the first watch - I can’t keep my head up any damn longer.”

  To Yesugei’s surprise, the two warriors nodded off first, making no effort to stay awake. Only once he was sure both were well and truly asleep did he rest his own head. The prospect of riding on was tempting, but exhaustion and the suffocating dark forced them to stay. It was a risk to stay - but come morning, they could outpace their unwelcome company in good time.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the howling of wolves beneath the crescent moon. They sounded just as near as when he had last slept in the abandoned tower. Tuyaara stood up to pace around the campfire, muttering to herself in Ormanli. He wanted to speak—to ask of wolves, prophecy, the eerie silence in the land—but sleep pulled him under before he could. Sleep came fitless, and without dreams once again.

  He didn’t know how long he slept before a rough hand shook him awake.

  His eyes shot open to see Kargasha’s face, and his hand went to the dagger at his belt. But then he saw the warrior’s face was pale with fright, and his stomach dropped.

  “Get up, and take your bow. Wolves are drawing on us- getting closer by the minute. Get up, damn you!”