Heroes of the Fall

[Raz_Fox]

Dol Mazzah

It was Malak, Firstborn of Tarn's Get, who saw the rider first, as was his custom and skill. He called the guardians of the gate to arms, and so they were ready with spears and slings when the rider urged her horse up to the great gate of Dol Mazzah. The rider threw back her hood and pulled down her mask and named herself Arenis, a huntress of the rocklands and slayer of monsters, guardian of the tribes all, ever a friend to the Aferi of Dol Mazzah in their time of need. Malak asked her who her second was, whether she be daughter or prisoner or slave, and the second pulled her matted, filthy black hair from her face to reveal a vision of loveliness beneath dirt and sweat. Arenis named her, then: Fayruz of the Tribe of the White City, daughter of the mighty chief Baz'Auran, her sworn ward.

Arenis was permitted entry with her weapons, as befitted the guardian of a chieftain's daughter, and Arenis requested that they be given audience with Tarn Beastslayer, who kept the great seat of Dol Mazzah, at once. Malak permitted this, and the guardian's horse was taken to be fed from the granary of Dol Mazzah, which was said to be filled with hunting-meat and berries from wall to wall before the city's fall, and all kept within clay pots that they would not spoil for many moons! So Arenis took Fayruz, who looked around herself with fear and curiosity interwoven, to the hall of the mighty Tarn Beastslayer. Fayruz had not the sense to bow when brought before Tarn's table and fire, so Arenis placed her hand upon the back of Fayruz's neck and forced her to her knees, and she too kneeled before being given permission to rise by Tarn, first and greatest of all chieftains in the rocklands.

Fayruz then stepped forward without invitation, brazenly, and offered her account of how she had lived in the beautiful White City before it was attacked by a foe too dreadful to name, a creature of the darkest night, and how she and her siblings had been scattered to the great winds, and how her power - passed down from her father, a shaman above all shamans - was gone here in the rock and the dust, for it was not her land. And all gathered there in Tarn's hall, women and warriors, listened to her, awestruck by both her beauty and the sweetness of her voice. And Tarn took pity on her, his kindly heart broken by her awful story, and he ordered the women of Dol Mazzah to take Fayruz and wash her, and to give her clothing that was not torn and dirt-stained, but befitted a chieftain's daughter well. And to Arenis, he offered sanctuary for a year and a day, until she was ready to return Fayruz to her father. This Arenis accepted, before asking - as Fayruz, hesitant as a newborn filly, was taken from the room - what news came from other hunters in these days, offering the battle between the Ma-Shen and the Ghoulking in the Valley of Teeth as her own.

Then Arenis and Tarn spoke of the tribes of the rocklands, the Aferi who prospered with their walls of ashen wood and their granary which never fell empty, and the Ma-Shen who had lost a third of their horses to the teeth of the Ghoulking and might fall to the Dereg who had accepted a new falcon god to be their totem and sought to use his favor in war, and of the almighty Tekeza - no, almighty no longer, said Malak Firstborn, who stood there as Tarn's most beloved son. They had awoken a Dragon in the mountains, digging for their copper, and their monster of a chieftain, Daved Skullsplitter, had fallen in its slaying, and so had his son, Gamesha. Now they had fallen to infighting and would devour themselves like a starving snake. But who would take their place? The Ma-Shen were barbarians, that much was evident, brigands who hardly understood hospitality. But the Dereg and the Iuneh were little better, those wild mountain-tribes, and the Kayanek and their heathen gods would never listen to reason, not while they still claimed the glass and the crystal of the sands.

And Malak stepped forward, urging his father - if they made an alliance with the White City, if it still stood, they could take the land of the Tekeza for themselves, and their copper weapons. With copper weapons and their wooden walls in Dol Mazzah, the Aferi could drive the Dereg and the Iuneh back into the mountains - and, perhaps, drive out the Ma-Shen, so that they could do battle once and for all against the Kayanek. Then, then, the land would be whole, and belong to the Aferi alone.

Arenis dissented; she said to him that the land was older than the Kaynek and the Aferi, and even the Tekeza. Neither the Lords of Dol Mazzah or the Coppermen or the Glasswinged People could do anything so presumptuous as mastering it. Malak stepped forward for all to see, and declared that the Aferi could, and by the power given to them by the gods should, take the rocklands and unite them under the rule of the chieftain of Dol Mazzah. As soon as he said such, Tarn himself rose from his seat and chastised his son, reminding him that Dol Mazzah's walls were strong, and would weather whatever storms crossed the rocklands, as they always had. The Ma-Shen could fall, the Kayanek could proclaim themselves lords just as the Tekeza had, but the Aferi would endure. This said, he commanded Malak to see to the walls, to keep watch for the Iuneh or the Ma-Shen, and to keep the spears of the Aferi ready, as well as their swift slings.

Malak, in anger at being banished from his father's hall, did so. He called upon his men-at-arms and commanded them to be ready to sleep on the walls that night to defend Dol Mazzah. As his soldiers readied themselves for their watch, making sure their sling-pouches were filled and their spears' tips were bound tightly, Malak went up onto the watchtower to look out over the grazing-land of the Aferi and their horses. He looked into the setting sun, and saw it obscured by smoke, thick and black and billowing from the east.

The warriors of the Aferi were ready within moments to protect Dol Mazzah, as Malak ordered the gates to be closed and for word to be sent to his father that the Aferi were under assault by one of their enemies. This done, he readied his own spears and ordered that watch be kept for the enemy, so that they would know their enemies' tribe and whether they were a mere warband or the entire tribe come to war. For, were an entire tribe's warriors come to fight them, it would mean that one of their ancient enemies had finally decided to break the walls of Dol Mazzah, or die in the attempt.