God Within Us

The bleeding cut on Yesugei’s face stung as Hecellon prodded at it with his finger, wrinkling his nose at the pus that seeped out.

“The wound is not infected, at least not yet,” the elf muttered as he set about rummaging through his satchel. “But if you’ll be sitting in that pen for much longer, I had best take precautions. The common folk of his land are riddled with illnesses…”

As Hecellon laid out several dark vials and bandages on the table to his side, Yesugei shifted in his chair and took a painful, wheezing breath.

“Of course…far be it for me to die and spoil all your fun,” Yesugei spoke with a rasping laugh. As he watched the elf set more of his tools out, his eyes fell upon the gleaming tip of a long, curved hook of iron. “That looks like no doctor's tool I’ve ever seen before.”

“It isn’t a tool of healing,” replied the elf as he took the hook into his hands. “It’s a tool of artistry - of a kind most find…difficult to understand.”

“Then what is such a respectable, kindly student of the arts doing traveling with a Klyazmite warband?” sneered Yesugei. “I’ve never known many Yllahanan scholars to leave their comfy towers for the life of a soldier.”

Hecellon sighed as he blotched a cloth rag with a foul-smelling tonic. Yesugei bit back a hiss as the elf pressed it to his forehead - the tonic felt cold to the touch, yet his wound burned furiously.

As the elf dabbed at the wound he said, “My countrymen like to think all the answers to the universe can be discovered from their towers - I thought otherwise. Great things do happen beyond glorious, old Thyl Thalas and its walls, and I intend to witness them myself instead of relying on the second-hand accounts of soothsayers and merchants.”

“What could possibly have brought you out to Klyazma, of all places?”

Hecellon put away the blotched cloth, and for a moment Yesugei felt the rush to leap out at the elf and bring him down. But the three silent guardsmen that stood a mere five feet away would skewer him before he could twist the Yllahanan's head from his shoulders. No, not yet…

The elf pondered Yesugei’s question, then took the iron hook into his hands, studying it against the light of the burning candle he kept with him.

“The stars are fading.”

Yesugei bit back the urge to laugh. “You are traveling with a northern warband because you are worried about stars?”

Hecellon moved quickly - more quickly than Yesugei could have anticipated. The elf slammed one foot onto the front edge of his wooden seat, then leaned in so close Yesugei could smell the Yllahanan's sickly-sweet perfume. Between them was the iron hook, which the elf placed against Yesugei's throat.

“You forget yourself, nomad,” the Yllahanan whispered as he delicately drew the sharp point of the hook from Yesugei's throat down to his chest, brushing lightly over his skin. “And you cannot possibly understand what you mock.”

The image of the bleak, jutting crystal consuming all light from the sky floated back into his memory. Targatai, Khenbish, Tseren, and Kaveh’s faces as they perished one by one. The terrible grasp on his chest that choked all life from his lungs. The inhuman abomination with its voice of scraping glass and screeching metal. Yesugei allowed himself a brave smile.

“I have seen a lot more than you might think,” he replied. “Try me.”

The elf's mouth hardened into a thin line as he tapped the hook against Yesugei's chest. Then he quietly said, “The stars are awakening. And when the night sky no longer glitters and the moon grows dim and feeble - it will begin. The Great Harvest.”

Yesugei's breath caught in his throat. He tried to stand up from his seat, but the digging point of the elf's hook forced him back down with a wince. When Yesugei looked back up, he saw the elf was smiling - a small, frightening, wolfish smile.

“So you do know…you were there…” Hecellon grinned.

“What do you know about the harvest?” Yesugei shot back. “Tell me!”

“I don't need to tell you anything, nomad.” The Yllahanan sneered, and then he placed his hook within the folds of Yesugei's robe, pulling it open to reveal his naked chest.

The elf's eyes lit up as he saw the small crystal that lay stuck in his heart. “Yes…it is as she had said…”

Hecellon pried the robe open fully for a better look, and then the elf's expression changed from joy to dark anger. Long, pale fingers wrapped around Yesugei's throat as the Yllahanan's purple-tinged eyes met his.

“Where are the other shards?” Snarled Hecellon, his eyes so bulged with rage he resembled a frog more than an elf. “WHERE ARE THEY?”

Yesugei made to laugh at the elf, but his chuckle turned into an agonized cry as a bolt of pain shot through his chest. Hecellon twisted the point of the hook into his flesh, and the iron burned as it dug deeper and deeper. The Yllahanan hissed, “You are not the Vessel - where are the rest of the shards?”

“Go ahead, kill me,” Yesugei managed to croak. “I've already died once to a power far greater than you - maybe I'll come back a second time, and flay you alive with your own bloody hook.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about the Apostles,” gasped Yesugei. “It killed me - but not before I killed it, whatever it was. But I'm still here…and the Apostle is scattered to the winds.”

To that, the Yllahanan released his throat and gave a high, lilting laugh of incredulity. “You lie. No one can kill an Apostle. They were supposed to give us strength - protect their chosen from the harvest!”

Yesugei thought of the Modkhai killers, clad in robes and silver helmets, who had fallen by the dozen in the Devil Woods. Their chants, their blind fanaticism, and yet they died all the same as Targatai - choking on their own blood, falling to be crushed underfoot by the Apostle like grass. Not chosen…but slaves. They were slaves, all of them. Even if they did not know it.

“You’ve been lied to, but not by me,” he spoke, taking a shallow breath that pushed the hook deeper into his flesh. “The Apostles do not care for their slaves and servants - the Modkhai who summoned the one I killed died like everyone else when it appeared.”

The elf searched his eyes for the truth, and Yesugei saw the color from Hecellon's face drain as his words sank in. Yesugei whispered to the elf, “No one will be spared. So whoever told you about the harvest…I need to know.”

But then Hecellon looked away, and glanced down at the crystal in Yesugei's chest. “You were spared. You survived - and the crystal was responsible.”

Yesugei felt a chill run down his spine as the elf stood up to his full height and pulled the hook free. “Maybe I should kill you, and carve your salvation from your chest and into mysel-”

Before the elf could stab him again Yesugei launched forward, driving the top of his skull into the elf's nose. The elf fell to the ground with blood gushing from his face, and the hook flew from his grip.

Hecellon rushed to retrieve his hook, but Yesugei moved faster. He drove his heel into the back of the elf's outstretched hand, then slammed his fist across the sorcerer's face as he cried out in pain. Then Yesugei felt himself struck bodily as the guards took both him and Hecellon to the ground with a loud clatter of armored plate.

He flailed his arms desperately to escape the hold of the armored man pinning him to the ground, and felt his fingers wrap around the handle of the warrior's dagger. But then a hand grabbed him by the back of the head, and his vision erupted in a shower of stars and pain as his forehead was slammed to the ground. When he looked up through his squinted eyes, he saw Hecellon looking up at him - his perfect Yllahanan nose now twisted and red.

“The Khormchak is our property, elf!” barked the warrior pinning Hecellon to the ground.

“Take them both to the pen,” commanded the guard who watched over the other two. “You've overplayed your hand, Hecellon. The Khormchak is my lord's to kill - not yours. But for your sake, I'll bring you to his lordship in the morning - he's of a far more lenient temperament then.”

Hecellon spat out a glob of bloody mucus at the guard's boots, but the man only sniffed and ordered them to be raised to their feet. Yesugei hid his smile at the Yllahanan's indignity as he hollered and yelled at his arrest - but then he began to think on the elf's words, and his fear.

The Yllahanan's madness was not just of fanaticism, but also of desperation. Unlike the Modkhai who had seemed resigned to their deaths in service, the elf was proud and terrified of the coming harvest. He considered proposing an alliance to the elf - much the same as Vasilisa had to himself - but dismissed the idea as quickly as it came to him. No…even if he knows much, neither of us would be able to sleep soundly with him around. He’d rip the teeth of night from our chests and run off to save himself alone the moment we were weak.

To that, Yesugei smiled. The Yllahanan was more Khormchak than he might have imagined.

When the guards hauled them both into the pen, the elf continued to shout curses in Common and Yllahanan at their backs as they retreated. Eventually however, the elf fell into a sullen silence - broken only by the occasional sniff as he tried to stop the dripping blood from his nose. In the darkness, none of the commoners dared to approach the Yllahanan - though Yesugei saw several of the men in the crowd looking on at the elf with temptation in their eyes.

“All of you,” Yesugei called out to the peasants, who looked at him with surprise. “I’m sure you know our friend here, Hecellon. Tell me, have any of you or yours had the delight of his questioning?”

No one spoke back. In the midnight darkness, it might have almost seemed like he was simply speaking into the void, were it not for the peasants’ silhouettes and the few rays of moonlight that illuminated them.

Eventually, the old woman who had laid her folk curse spoke up. Yesugei recognized her by her ancient, haggard-sounding voice. “He put my grandsons to the question, when they were looting our village for gold - as if we were not struggling to even feed our own. Do you remember them, elf?”

Hecellon did not reply. He kept his back to the rest of the peasants, but Yesugei saw his growing unease in the way he straightened his spine.

The old woman continued, “I offered myself in their place - but all he said was that I was too old - that it would not be fun to torment a hag such as myself. Do you remember that, elf? Do you remember a grandmother’s screams when you tortured them with your bloody hook - two young men with wives and newborns of their own?”

“So what if I do?” Hecellon sneered, though he did not look back at the woman. “Do you think making me remember is going to bring your stinking whelps back?”

“No - you left my grandsons to rot in a ditch once you had your fun,” the old woman responded. Her voice was even and resolute - absent of any venom or great malice. “You made sure they would not reach the heavens. I’m telling you about them so you know exactly who awaits you when your black soul reaches the underworld.”

The rest of the night passed by in quiet. When Yesugei eventually closed his eyes and tried to rest his head as comfortably as he could, he saw Hecellon still lay wide awake, his back against the pen.

***

The skies of the next day remained bleak and gray, and Yesugei shivered awake as he felt the cold clawing away at his core.

It is the middle of summer…Yesugei wondered as he wrapped his arms around himself. Then why is it so damn cold? And so dark?

He wondered whether the old woman's curse upon the boyars had indeed worked, and only then thought to check on Hecellon. The elf must have remained awake all through the night - his eyes were puffy and red from lack of sleep, and he too shivered in his thin summer robe which was now wet and slick with mud and piss. But even with his hands tied behind his back, none of the peasants had taken their chances in the night - for that, he wondered whether it was cleverness, or simply still the fear of their tormentor.

The only one who looked upon the elf with no fear was the old wise woman who now huddled in a crowd with the others in the pen - shivering for some warmth in a morning with no sun.

Throughout the rest of the camp, Yesugei saw the rest of the warriors who emerged from their tents were just as bitterly cold - he saw several spearmen working to start a large bonfire in the middle of camp, while others crowded around the remains of yesterday's cookfire to warm their hands over the embers. He looked out to the Solarian temple, and saw its damaged chimney belching out a great cloud of smoke.

“The punishment has begun,” whispered the old woman. “The sun has hidden its face from the cruelty of the world, and we will all suffer.”

“Not in equal measure, it seems,” hissed Hecellon as he pointed out at the warriors building their fires. “The strong will always find a way, while you peasants will die in droves - and among them you will die first, hag witch.”

Yesugei tuned out the elf's bitter malevolence, and pressed one hand to the grassy ground just outside the pen. He tried to listen the way he did in the grasslands, searching for signs and whispers from the black earth - but all he felt was the cold, and the dread loneliness of the land, which was absent of all spirits.

All the animals have fled, he thought as he took a fistful of the cold earth into his palm. All except the wolves and crows, who will feast one final time when their Harvest comes.

A shout shook him from his reverie, and Yesugei looked out from the pen to see several of Stribor's druzhina guards pushing their way through the shivering throng of warriors. He saw them swinging wooden clubs and shouting curses, and then from the crowd a squad of druzhinniks emerged dragging three men: Pervusha, Zayats, and Yerch.

The warriors were roaring their innocence as they were marched across the mud, with Pervusha loudest among them all. When they reached the middle of the camp, Yesugei saw the doors to the temple open once more. Stribor emerged first, clad in his shining armor and a heavy cloak to ward off the cold. Behind him walked Vasilisa, wearing a white Solarian robe and wrapped in heavy furs - her expression calm.

The boyar and Vasilisa came to a stop in front of the warriors, the druzhinniks forcing their prisoners to their knees. The rest of the warband began to crowd around the unfolding scene, whispering and muttering among themselves, but Yesugei could still hear the cries of the three rapists among the chatter.

“I didn't know…I didn't know…” gasped Yerch, his voice wavering with tears as he bowed his head. “I didn't know…”

“That doesn't matter,” spat Stribor. “You should have known better. And the law is all the same, whether you knew or not. You laid your hands on nobility - a princess, no less.”

“You would have let us have her if the Khormchak didn’t speak!” roared Pervusha, his mottled, bruised face turning dark red with rage. “You would have fucked her yourself if you didn’t know!”

Stribor smashed the kneeling axeman across the face with the back of his hand, sending spots of blood and a tooth flying onto the muddy ground. “I will not have you slander my name, you disgusting dog. For that, I’ll leave your body beneath the open skies for the wolves..”

“I only watched!” Zayats shouted suddenly. “I only kept watch for the others! I didn’t mean to lay a finger on her myself, I swear!”

Vasilisa’s lips parted in a frightening smile, one that sent a chill down Yesugei’s spine. “Then you can die last, so you can watch the others.”

Of the three, the lancer Yerch seemed the most confused - perhaps drunk - as all he could say was, “Had a hunnerd others milord…a hunnerd others before…” before falling into uncontrollable sobbing.

Vasilisa turned her nose up in disgust at the three rapists, and nodded to Stribor, who barked for a sword. When he was met only with uneasy silence from the soldiers, he commanded one of his sworn druzhinniks to bring him a blade until Vasilisa spoke up.

“My lord, I had asked…”

Stribor waved Vasilisa off. “My lady, cleaving a condemned head from their shoulders is a man’s work. You would only make their suffering longer with many strokes. Let me spare you the effort.”

A few of the druzhinniks and even a handful of the gathered soldiers spoke up as well, each of them volunteering themselves to carry out the execution for their newfound lady’s favor.

Vasilisa waited for the brief clamor to die down, then said, “The arms-master, Stavr the Old, trained me on pigs and sheep. I learned to strike head from body in a single blow by his tutelage - and I would give these men the same swift fate."

Stribor laughed. “You cannot be serious.”

"If you doubt my strength of arm," Vasilisa replied, gesturing out to the gathered crowd. "Some of your own men here can attest to my prowess, my lord."

An uncomfortable, embarrassed silence fell over the crowd. The memory and terror of the fight at Balai was still fresh in some minds - as was the memory of how the girl in the middle of the crowd had felled one of the warband's champions. No-one rose to speak up in the princess' favor, but neither was there any uproarious laughter against her claim. Then suddenly, a druzhinnik from the crowd pushed his way forward and pulled his sword free from its sheath - laying the blade out across his hands as he knelt before Vasilisa.

"My lady...you speak the truth," spoke the warrior, his head bowed low. "I would not deny your strength before the heavens. You deserve your vengeance for the crimes of my shield-brothers, and I would offer you my blade to carry out Perun's justice."

The druzhinnik's words shifted the tide. Immediately, another warrior spoke up, offering forth his own sabre for the princess' justice. Then another man stepped forward, presenting his greataxe. Soon half of the gathered crowd was presenting swords and axes to take the heads of their brothers - for a princess' favor weighed more than the lives of the three forsaken. Yesugei saw the rapists' eyes fill with a terrible despair.

“This isn’t right - none of it is!” shouted Pervusha, nearly throwing off the two druzhinniks that held him down before a third cracked him on the back of the head with a club. “Brothers! Stop this madness!”

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know!” screamed Zayats as his head was lowered.

Vasilisa carefully studied the druzhinnik who had first knelt before her, and then studied the sword he presented to her. It was a great cavalry sabre - its decorated hilt long enough to wield with two hands, and its gently curved blade honed to a razor's edge from tip to guard. It was a weapon for a champion - and as suitable as any other for the butchery that was to occur.

Yesugei saw her slowly wrap her fingers around the leathern handle of the sword, and the circle of onlookers widened as she raised the sword into the air to test its weight. Even Stribor drew back a few steps, and Yesugei saw his hand instinctually come to his belt for his dagger, resting his fingers just on the hilt as Vasilisa approached the three condemned.

The steel blade seemed to blend with the gray skies as Vasilisa raised it high over the neck of the first man - Pervusha.

“I should have fucked you bloody right then in the forests,” snarled Pervusha. “Would have taught you your place then, you beastly whore. I bet you would have enjoyed it too, you-"

The sabre whistled down. The blade separated flesh and bone in a silver blur that seemed to pass right through the warrior's thick neck. Blood sprayed the ground, followed by Pervusha’s head, and then his body which the druzhinniks let fall limply into the mud.

A clean cut…thought Yesugei. A quick end. She was not lying.

By now, the rest of the peasants had roused and were observing as closely as they could from within the pen as Vasilisa quickly moved to the lancer Yerch, who could only sob pathetically before his head joined Pervusha’s. Some of the peasants were silent, but others gasped and spoke in hushed whispers as they saw Vasilisa take the lancer’s head. Yesugei glanced over at the weaver’s wife, and saw that beneath her dead gaze the woman's lips were parted in a crooked-toothed smile.

“Gods be good…gods be good…” Zayats swayed lightly as he saw Vasilisa approaching him, the long sabre dripping with blood. “I was just keeping an eye out- mercy, please, my lady. Mercy!”

Vasilisa swung her sword for the final time, cutting Zayats’ howl of terror short with a wet thud. The archer’s head landed in the mud, and the three rapists' bodies lay splayed out beneath the gray skies, their blood seeping into the trodden earth. Silence rang deafeningly throughout the camp, then Vasilisa let the sabre slip from her fingers.

The princess took a short breath, and the tension melted away into the sodden ground as she inclined her head in Stribor's direction. “I thank you, my lord, for allowing me to restore my honor with my own hands. Your justice will not be forgotten by Prince Svetopolk.”

Stribor nodded. “That is good to hear. Someone, set my lady’s blade aside. The rest of you - take whatever you wish from this lot, and prepare to move! We ride for Pemil!”

A cheer rose up from the crowd at the mention of the city, and all comradely sentiments were laid to the side as Yesugei saw the warriors quickly rush over to claim the dead rapists’ belongings - seizing boots, belts, armor, and even Zayats’ cloak, still drenched in blood and muck. The men set upon the dead warriors with the same gusto as they did with Vratislav - like a pack of starving wolves eating one of their own during a harsh winter. Three soldiers nearly came to blows over Zayats’ golden brooch, which itself had once belonged to the boyar of Yerkh.

He allowed himself a small grin at the deaths of the three rapists, and cast a sideways glance at Hecellon - who sat slack-jawed at the sight of the execution.

“Barbarism…barbarism…all of it…” the elf muttered under his breath as he saw the warriors looting the dead. “Savages."

Yesugei turned to face the Yllahanan head-on, prodding him in the side with a muddy boot. “This madness is just the start - your own Apostles would spread this madness a thousandfold if more of their kind emerge onto the world. I must know who told you about the crystals, about everything. Otherwise none of us will be spared.”

But the Yllahanan only defiantly stuck his jaw out, then spat a glob of bloody mucus that barely missed Yesugei’s face. “Curse you, you Khormchak slave. You know nothing of the future that was promised - nothing. I will not listen to your lies - only your screams when the stars come for you. And then I will laugh."

Yesugei prepared to kick the sneering elf in the face when he felt something lightly float onto his head - lighter than a feather. He looked up to see tiny pale flecks falling from the sky, sticking to his face and clothes.

Snow…? In the summer?

When he looked down at the settling flakes, he saw they were too fine, too dark to be bits of snow. Snow did not paste and clump to skin. Snow did not cause men to choke, as several of the peasants began to violently hack and cough when the flakes found their way into their lungs. Snow did not feel so dead - as where the flakes fell to form a thin blanket over the grassy earth, it felt as though the land was being smothered, suffocated to death by a falling tide of gray.

Yesugei looked up at the skies again. Then he realized what he was seeing - and realized why the morning was so dark and cold.

No...not snow. Ash.