Chapter 284
Chapter 284
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 284
Chapter Title: The Hawk Takes Flight (5)
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Time on the steppes flows slower than the wind. Unlike the gales that occasionally sweep in and upend the gers, it drifts by lazily at times, as if you could grasp it in your hand—yet it never truly stops.
Among those who call themselves descendants of Tetai or Tergui, there’s an old joke. They say that when you race faster than the wind, you sometimes run alongside long-dead ancestors from ages past. It’s mere superstition, and most Tetai don’t truly believe it.
But one man was clinging desperately to even such a jest as he galloped across the steppes right now.
- Dududududu!
A band of horsemen clung tightly to his side. The lead youth approached through a haze of dust, veins bulging in his neck as he bellowed hoarsely.
“How many days has it been like this?!”
“……”
The middle-aged man glanced at him with sunken, exhausted eyes but said nothing, yanking hard on the reins. The horse frothed white at the mouth but obeyed submissively, surging forward at his command.
The youth ground his teeth and shouted.
“Stop this! We didn’t listen to that mad old fool! My lord!”
“……”
“Stop! Please!”
- Hiiing!
The youth who had drawn up close and yelled seized the reins almost by force. Exhausted from the endless ride, the man let them slip from his grasp without resistance.
The horse reared in fright at the sudden halt. In the chaos, the middle-aged man tumbled ignobly to the ground. Dust puffed up in a cloud. As he coughed weakly, the youth—who had charged ahead in a panic—leaped down from his mount in haste.
“My lord! Damn it! Are you all right?”
The man just coughed without a word. The youth bowed his head deeply, then drew his sword and plunged it into the earth. A gesture meaning “strike off my head.” But the man rose unsteadily without reply, merely patting the horse’s flank to calm it.
“Do you know what’s become of the ger, my lord? While you’ve been bewitched by that senile lunatic’s words and wandered, our clan has been hounded from our lands! Will you keep following that damned shaman’s ravings even after we’re all dead?”
“Where is Takai… where’s Takai?”
“He’s dead! Damn it! Dead! That was five days ago!”
“Dead…”
The man climbed onto the now-calm horse’s stirrup. He bit his parched lips and bowed his head without a word. The youth, staring at his dust-caked clothes, squeezed his eyes shut and spoke.
“So… has Turguzin appeared? You said a week.”
“No.”
“Then the old man’s gone senile!”
“It must be my failing.”
“Please don’t say that, my lord. Turn back to the ger now, have a drink, get some proper rest, and then…”
“I can’t do that. But… yes. Let’s head back.”
As the man wheeled his horse around, the five or six youths who had pursued him fell in behind.
* * *
His clan was on the run. A commonplace steppe feud. And a commonplace death. Day by day, the number of clan warriors dwindled, and desperation crept across the faces of those unable to find food.
Once, his clan had pitched over a hundred gers in prosperity. Now, that number had halved—and halved again—and the able-bodied youths numbered even fewer. Ruin loomed. And its herald was the death of one small boy.
At least, that was what the man believed.
“Let go of me, you idiots!”
“Shut your mouth! Be grateful we haven’t slit your throat yet!”
The youths dragged the clan shaman—who had forever whispered nonsense in their lord’s ear—into the central square and forced him to his knees. Since the man himself had admitted, “I never met Turguzin’s soul,” every word from the shaman had been drivel.
The old, sickly shaman foamed at the mouth in rage. The man gazed down at him, seeing echoes of himself and his clan: diseased, aged, and frail.
“My lord! What shall we do with him?”
The youths drew their blades and shouted. Slitting his throat with steel was a brutal act, ignoring all traditional rites of execution. For the soul would be bound to the earth. The man raised a hand calmly, silencing them.
He stepped forward and said,
“There was no sign of Turguzin’s soul there.”
“Killed by the blade, dragged down into the dirt, no doubt.”
“You senile fool!!”
- Kaang!
The youths roared in fury at the cackling elder’s retort. The man raised his hand again to quiet them, then asked softly,
“But there were other omens.”
“What omens did you see, my lord?”
“Far to the north. And to the east. At sunrise, I saw blood spreading across the sky. What do you think that means?”
“A revelation, my lord. That those who drove the blade into Turguzin’s neck lie in that direction.”
“……Did you see your own death as well?”
“Yes, my lord. I saw that I die today. This very moment.”
“Could Turguzin return to life?”
“That is impossible, my lord. But I saw the day you achieve even greater deeds. I saw your future as the hawk of the skies, ruler of thousands of gers, the one called the Scar of the World. Great Kagan, take my head.”
“Kagan?”
The youths recoiled and murmured at the blasphemous word. It was a title formed but never realized. Overlord of all clans. Chieftain of chieftains. King of kings. Kagan.
As the youths stared at the man’s face, he looked down for a long moment at the cackling elder with hollow eyes. Then he seized a sword and severed the old man’s head in one stroke.
- Kwajik!
The head rolled across the ground. Blood gushed, soaking the earth. The youths muttered superstitious chants to ward off the curse in a sorcerer’s blood and backed away.
But the man drew close to the severed head and whispered,
“I will believe you.”
Your death has sealed your prophecy, so I shall believe the rest as well. Smiling, he gazed at the old man’s whitening face, then turned and headed to his ger.
* * *
At the man’s command, a feast was held for the first time in ages. He released all the rations he’d hoarded while fleeing pursuit, filling the warriors’ bellies.
The clan youths laughed and chatted merrily, eating and drinking their fill at last. But inside the man’s ger, silence hung heavy. The youth who had managed the clan in his absence set down his cup and spoke cautiously.
“My lord, what now? You really mean to clash with them?”
“Are their numbers that great?”
“……More than double ours.”
“Then how many heads do those spire cities hold?”
“My lord…”
The spire cities. The term for those self-proclaimed “civilized” soft-hands. At the words, the youth paled in terror. Barely a hundred souls. Even counting the whole clan, not five hundred. How could they stand against a city’s army?
“Turguzin was like a nephew to me. I grieve too. But my lord, you must think rationally. We can scarcely stand against the Tumetchiut as it is.”
“Scar of the World. Fine words, aren’t they?”
“My lord…!”
“Enough.”
The man downed his cup of mare’s milk in one gulp and rubbed his dry face. His gloomy voice rumbled from beneath his callused palm.
“Takai’s death… it’s been five days, you say?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Are you still as grieved as you were five days ago?”
“……Pardon?”
As the youth faltered at the sudden question, the man continued.
“A five-day scar. The death of your brother, my retainer. Turguzin’s death. How many years will it ache? A month? Half a year? Perhaps three years. That much of a scar, Bayar. Nothing more.”
“My lord.”
“Bayar. Your death won’t scar for long either.”
The man lowered his hand and looked at his loyal retainer. Then he turned his gaze to the map hanging in one corner of the ger. The worn parchment traced their flight paths, the encircling enemy clans, and new routes for wandering.
And atop it, faintly: tiny dots no one heeded. The spire cities. Naturally, his clan had no dealings with them. Their goods weren’t plentiful enough for trade.
But not anymore.
“I’ll leave the deepest scar.”
Not some petty revenge. What he gained from his son’s empty death was terror: that everyone’s end might fade so commonly, so vainly.
Old wounds become traces. But scars never fade.
The spire cities. Those “noble” soft-hands before whom the Amar clan had knelt, begging for mere iron tools, pots, or stirrups.
Ten days racing the steppes. Ten days and nights seeking his son’s soul. In that time, voices had whispered on the wind.
Unlike what he’d told the dead shaman, he hadn’t seen mere omens. Beside him rang not his son’s voice, but another’s—unceasing.
[They cannot refuse it. And you and your clan can produce plenty. It litters these steppes in abundance.]
[Death.]
Time on the steppes flows slowly. In the instant you gallop on horseback—when you outpace the wind—it slows even more. In that endless span, the man focused on the persistent voice—
And at last, felt power flood his body with realization. Viscous, hot, intense power. The power he’d once rejected, now embraced with the shaman’s death. He named it “fate.”
“Tonight—this very moment—we strike the Tumetchiut.”
“Isn’t it too late?”
“That’s why they won’t expect it. Haven’t you fed the warriors their fill?”
“They’ll flee in terror.”
“They must fear me more than that.”
The man rose and spoke. He showed no sign of the near ten days endured on horseback. An unknowable power seemed to emanate from him. Flames flickered in his eyes.
Stepping from the ger, he saw his men gathered around the campfire, roasting meat and drinking. They giggled drunkenly, then flinched at the sight of him.
Night on the steppes. Beneath that dark sky, the man’s silhouette seemed to swell gigantic. Overwhelmed by his presence, the clan warriors half cowered, half in awe, bowing their heads.
“Drink! Warriors of Amar.”
He strode onward without pause. As the youths hesitantly raised their cups, he snatched one from the nearest warrior and drained it.
“Drink!”
His shout shook the entire camp. The youths stood, hoisting their cups high, as he marched toward the camp’s edge. They followed, entranced.
First bewilderment, then tension. Soon, exhilaration swept the camp. Like the sun bursting after long dormancy. Something was happening. Something was afoot! The youths’ hearts pounded wildly at the sight of his massive back.
At the camp’s end, before the tethered horses, he turned and bellowed.
“As we mourned Turguzin and so many warriors! A week, ten days, half a year? We won’t leave mere ‘traces’ like that. Warriors of Amar! I—and you—won’t end in such fleeting grief!”
He vaulted into the stirrups and gripped the reins tight.
“Your names will echo eternally across this world’s every land. I’ll make it so! From child to elder, all will whisper our name in dread! Lrwiwengar—the Hawks! We are no mere traces! Warriors of Amar, to horse!”
At his words, the youths dashed to their mounts. Drink and fervor tangled their ranks in chaos. He watched and cried out.
“We shall be scars! Uruya—advance! Uruya! Our names shall live forever! Uruya, Lrwiwengar—charge, Hawks!!”
With the shout, he plunged into the shadowed steppes where night lay low. The clan warriors followed, roaring as one, thundering after him.
Thus was born Karadskar. The great clan lord of the White Steed Tribe, called the “Scar of the World” in the tongue of the Great Wilderness. Amar Kagan.