“Tulgutai was teaching you the way of the Sarugani warrior,” Orkhun Targan said, his words translated to Julian by Batzir, the exquisitely dressed feathery shaman. The targan sat naked in a hot spring, his arms stretched wide across the rocks that made up a natural tub. Water cascaded from a small stream above that flowed through a wooded valley from the base of a small mountain not far from the village. The stream then filtered out below, keeping the hot, steamy waters clean and fresh.

  The targan sat alone, and Julian and the shaman spoke with him while standing by the tub’s rim. Julian made a note to come here to bathe when it was free. If only I could take Lucy here… wouldn’t that be a sight!

  “He humiliated me for taking his wife off him,” Julian said, glum. The shaman translated. His face still went red at the thought of being beaten up in front of the whole village. In front of the targan. In front of Lucy.

  The targan laughed, throwing his head back as he breathed in the thick steam emanating from the hot spring. “Men have their pride, don’t they?” Orkhun Targan leaned forward, submerging his arms in the hot springs. The water stirred around him, rippling in a circle. “Heavy to bear is the burden of pride. It drives men to conquer mountains and to fall from their peaks.”

  “What am I doing here?” Julian asked impatiently. He still struggled to breath through his nose, feeling throngs of pain when he inhaled. A deep purple bruise blotched his shin.

  “Learning, are you not?” The targan raised a brow. “I always believed one learnt best by doing. But just as you must learn, so must I. Tell me about your land. This ‘England.’ It must be far from here, for you do not look like those Nagarans of the South with their coppery skin. Their Vakrul princes bind the ash of their slain foes to their flesh, which makes them look grey and half-dead. Nor are you of the east, beyond the Veyral mountains, with their eerie white eyes. Did you come from the north-east, perhaps? Beyond the great, icy forests?”

  England… how he missed it. He got flashes of the rich green English countryside as he looked over the vast mountain valley. A land of small hills and forests. Crawling with red squirrels and foxes. And cities, of course. Many, many cities. “England is further away than that. Further away than you could imagine, I think. It is not of this world.”

  The targan frowned, rubbing his soaking beard. “I do not understand. Does it lie in the heavens? Or in the realm of the dead?”

  Julian hummed. How to explain it to him? He pointed up at the sky. “England is on a planet called Earth. A planet is a type of ‘realm’ or ‘world’ as you may call it. And it is somewhere out there.” He looked up at the clear, crystal blue sky as the breeze brushed his hair back and forth. Somewhere out there indeed. Unless he was in a parallel universe or something, in which case it may not be there at all. But Julian reckoned it was, somewhere. But how far, who knew. He could very well be in a different galaxy, hundreds of billions or trillions of light years away. It made him dizzy just thinking about it.

  The targan looked up. His lip curled in confusion, revealing a chipped tooth. “So it is in the heavens. In the sky realm.”

  “No, beyond that. When you see the stars lighting the night sky, that’s where my Earth is. Somewhere among them. Each star is a sun, like the sun that rises in the morning and sets in the night. All of those stars you see are like your sun, some bigger, some smaller.”

  Julian hadn’t noticed, but when he looked back down at the bathing targan, his mouth formed an O, and his eyes were wide with fascination. It actually surprised Julian that he was keeping a fairly open mind about this, considering Julian was essentially challenging his religion. Such crimes carried harsh punishments in England once. Then again, he knew various older pagan religions were quite tolerant of other gods.

  In the targan’s eyes, as he looked up at the sky and toward the sun, Julian almost saw a flicker of understanding, as though something had clicked inside his brain. “But how are they so small? Why do these other ‘suns’ only reveal themselves at night, when our sun brings the dawn?”

  “Because they are so far away. Further away than you could possibly imagine. It would take you a million million lifetimes to reach them. Some of them are brighter than your sun, but you only see their light from so far, so it appears a twinkle in the night sky. Each of those stars have planets around them, though most are barren and inhospitable landscapes. Too harsh for anything to live on.” Julian had forgotten that astronomy was one of his many passions, one of his earliest, in fact. He still remembered reading picture books about the solar system, memorising all of the planets that orbited the Sun. Saturn was his favourite because it had a ring. He always found that cool for some reason and remembered wishing Earth had a ring once.

  “Huh,” the targan said, nodding. “What an interesting myth this is, Arahkin. Your realm must have had wise shamans. Our shamans tell that when Eternal Sky Arahka mated with the Great Earth Arahka, they spawned four children. Zaghatai, the dragon, and great hunter of the sky. Karkulun—the Yak, Erdenek—the Man, and Chalgunar—the Wolf. From them all other beings came to be.”

  “I see,” Julian nodded, not interested in trying to explain the theory of evolution to him next. Though it was an interesting tale. They weren’t far off, really. The sky glazes the ground with its fertile spray, and life grows. It’s quite clever.

  “And your warriors?” Orkhun Targan said, standing up out of the spring to reveal his soaked, broad naked form. His round belly wobbled. Julian averted his gaze. “Are they as fierce as our Tulgutai?”

  Julian sighed. “Does it really matter? They are very far away.”

  The targan shook his head, laughing as he dried himself and threw on his crimson robe. “I’m curious.” He put the Rolex back on his wrist, admiring it as the gold caught the light. “We are both of noble blood and forged by war, are we not? The nobles in your land do not fight?”

  Julian scratched his head as the targan put on his felt coat. “The nobles in my land have not fought for many generations. Our way of war is different to yours, and our nobles prefer to intoxicate themselves and have orgies rather than do anything honourable.”

  Orkhun erupted into laughter, holding his belly. “Ha! That doesn’t sound so bad to me. Sarugani targans are oft drunk on the milk of the mares, celebrating their victories with their many wives, and the wives of those captured in battle.”

  Julian pressed his lips. He’d seen exactly what that sort of lifestyle does to people and their countries. And he’d read enough about fallen empires to know just when abouts they start crumbling. “And then your nation and people will grow fat and weak, rotting under you while you drink your milk and fuck your wives.”

  “Watch your tone!” the shaman Batzir hissed at him.

  “I will not hide my thoughts,” Julian replied curtly. The targan looked at both of them strangely, but then the shaman translated anyway.

  The targan just chuckled, beckoning them both to come. They walked away from the hot springs, down a pleasant wooded path that wound past the base of the mountain. Trees and branches rustled in the breeze, and small birds flew overhead. “And yet you are not fat nor weak. A poor representation of your people, then? Such a fate will not become the Sarugani. The land has made us hard and taught us how to survive.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Don’t you have animals to be hunting, or herds to capture?” Julian asked, in no mood to argue further. Should they become great, the weight of their victories will bloat them until they crumble under their own indulgence. Such is the destiny of all empires.

  The targan pulled his belt up, strangling his bloated stomach. “I do, and it is high time you began learning with us. I know not how a noble like yourself can not ride a horse, but with Sarigen, you don’t require much training with a bow. Either way, you must be taught in the Sarugani ways before I can present you to the Targashar. The Arahkin will be of great interest to them, but not if he can’t ride a horse.”

  “What’s the Targashar?”

  “A meeting of Targans,” the targan clarified. “There we discuss everything and anything of importance. Which tribes we shall raid, where we shall migrate and settle as the seasons pass, how much tribute each of us is to offer the Nagaran Vakrul of the South, lest they scorch us all with their dragons. Among other things. There are also festivities.”

  “I see. Well, it’s about time I started doing something useful…” he said. He was starting to get bored wandering around with nothing to do. It had begun sinking in now how much he missed the odd conveniences of his old life like a phone or computer. Something to pass the time when bored. Hell, he’d even kill for a book right now, but there was none of that here. These people’s sole focus and occupation was surviving, which clearly left them little time for anything else. That and fucking, he supposed. It was no wonder these primitive people had so many children, there was nothing else to do!

  #

  His training began the next day, fresh in the morning. A man named Tolgruk guided over a huffy horse with a light grey coat. It wasn’t the biggest horse he’d ever seen, with a thick neck and a stocky build. Tolgruk was short and stocky, too, with a long, thin grey moustache and light green serpentine eyes.

  The shaman, Batzir, would have to accompany them until Julian began picking up enough of the language to understand the trainer’s instructions.

  Julian stood in the middle of the training ground, the golden-brown grass beneath him flattened by dozens of hoofprints. The grey horse before him snorted, pawing the earth with its shaggy hoof. This animal was bred for the harshness of the steppe, unlike himself, made soft by a lifetime in a cosmopolitan shit heap.

  Tolgruk barked something in Sarugani, pointing at the horse. His weathered face scrunched up into a scowl. Batzir grabbed Julian's tattooed hand to translate. “Tolgruk says to stop looking at the horse like it will eat you. They smell weakness like a fly smells shit.”

  Julian glared at Tolgruk. “I almost fell off a donkey once…”

  After the shaman spoke, Tolgruk threw his head back with laughter and flicked his hand toward the horse. “Get on! Donkeys are for children. Men ride horses.”

  Yet I see children as young as nine riding horses here… Are they toddlers when they train on donkeys? “Great,” Julian said instead. He grabbed the reins while Tolgruk kept the impatient steed calm. He caught a glimpse of Lucy watching him from the edge of the field. She must have finished gathering wood for the hearth early today. She didn’t look as glum as she normally did, all wrapped up in her furs and leathers. It suited her, really.

  “Be careful, Julian,” she said, biting her nails. “Don’t stand behind it, either! I knew a girl in school who had all her teeth knocked out when a horse kicked her.”

  “Thanks for that, Lucy,” he said, scrunching his eyebrows and shaking his head. And just now he remembered there’s no dentists here. If this thing knocks my teeth out, I’ll be wearing a toothless smile for the rest of my days.

  Before she could put him off anymore, he hauled himself up on the saddle, swinging his leg over the horse. Even though the horse wasn’t that big, just sitting atop it, he felt like he was very high. Too high. High enough that, should he fall, he knew it would hurt. No modern healthcare here either… He ought to stop thinking about all that. Things like broken bones and what not just made him more nervous.

  “Just think of it like riding a bike!” Lucy yelled.

  He scowled. “How the fuck is this anything like riding a bike?”

  “Sorry!” she squeaked. “I’m just trying to help!”

  Tolgruk said something in Sarugani as he looked back at Lucy, then said something more. The shaman rushed to grab his hand. “He says to sit up straight like a warrior, not a sack of manure.”

  “Sure,” Julian muttered, straightening his back as best he could. A back bent from years of slouching in a computer chair. He probably looked like some kind of golem to these people. He gripped the reins so hard his knuckles whitened, trying desperately to steady himself as his weight shifted from side to side. He feared he’d slip off if the horse swayed anymore.

  “Ha!” Tolgruk snapped, giving the horse a light tap on its hind. It jolted forward. Julian yelped, his legs trying to grip the sides of the trotting hose.

  “Easy!” Julian yelled as he bounced awkwardly in the saddle, fearing he’d swing off at any moment. “Easy!” He clutched the reins desperately in his sweaty hands.

  “You’re getting the hang of it!” Lucy’s cheerful voice carried across the grounds. It may have given him confidence if he wasn’t busy fearing for his life.

  Tolgruk jogged beside him, yelling more words in Sarugani, but as the shaman was now left behind, Julian had no idea what he was saying. The horse then broke into a canter, and Julian’s panic peaked. The ground shook and swayed beneath him, and each time the horse’s hooves connected with the ground, it sent a shock through his spine. He managed to balance himself quite well for an amateur until the inevitable happened… The horse gave a swift jerk, and Julian’s balance gave way.

  He crashed to the ground, tumbling over on the flattened grass. The impact smashed the air from his lungs. Dust rose around him, and mud clung to his leather coat. The horse trotted on some more without its rider, snorting. Julian felt as though it were mocking him, laughing.

  “Are you okay?” Lucy yelled from the sides, but he ignored her, just groaning instead as he nursed his chest.

  “I hate this place,” he moaned, pushing himself up to a sitting position. His body ached all around.

  Tolgruk and Batzir rushed over, the pair towering over him. Tolgruk gave him a hand. Julian took it, and the short man pulled him to his feet with ease. He said something, and the shaman took Julian’s hand. “Tolgruk says you must fall many times before you ride as the Sarugani do. At least you shed no tears. You did well.”

  Julian glanced at the grey steed that just threw him off, casually nibbling on some grass just a few feet away. “I have time for tears yet.” He looked over at Lucy who smiled at him, the green in her eyes glinting, her ginger hair flowing from the leather fur lined hat she wore. Her presence comforted him.

  Tolgruk patted him on the shoulder. “Again,” he barked, nudging his head toward the horse.

  Julian heaved a deep breath, muttering as he approached the horse, “The bloody things I have to do here.”

  And so that is how the next few months of Julian Beaumont’s new, humble life passed by. Days spent mostly training on horseback, quickly bringing him up to a level where the small children, like Khorjin’s son, were currently at. Other times he would practice at sword play, and in his own time, he summoned Sarigen and shot at targets.

  The ghost bow seemed to fascinate everyone in the village, and he became somewhat of a performer for them, especially the children, chasing them with the ghost arrows (never hitting them, of course).

  Otherwise, he and Lucy were usually treated like unwelcome strangers. Stray dogs, one might say.

  He enjoyed learning to hunt the most. Of course, he had it easier since he could use his ghost bow, which was basically like an aimbot for archery. It's where he tended to earn the most respect as he could bring down great elk with ease, feeding a good portion of the village. Things like fishing and learning to skin game, from rabbits to wild boar, were particularly enjoyable for him. Julian found it odd that he, as a lover of animals, took no distaste with hunting. He had always understood that if one is hunting purely to eat, for survival, then there is no ill in taking an animal's life. These people had no supermarkets or fridges. It was only those who hunted purely to kill, for the enjoyment of watching something die, that he took issue with.

  Learning the harsh, guttural Sarugani tongue was the hardest of all, though the most necessary. After all, he had to be able to speak to his new wife and her sons. The wedding ceremony could only take place when he learned the words.

  Julian had never imagined he would ever be married, truthfully, and yet found that he would soon have two wives.

  One night, as he laid on the grass with aching thighs and a sore back after a hard day of horse riding training, pondering it all, he noticed something peculiar. In the stunning, celestial sky, among the millions of stars twinkling brilliantly and the great arch of shimmering galactic dust that swept across the vista, he saw that this world had two moons.