Chapter 1
Mud - Amanki
Baskrod had warned me, but I had chosen not to believe him. The old fisherman had repeatedly and fervently entreated me to escape with him even if nobody else followed, but I had refused. I did not want to leave behind our land and the home that had been my father’s and his father’s before that. Like the other villagers, I preferred to soak in a comfortable mud bath of denial.
I’ll never know exactly why I went out for a walk that night, though every detail of the night is forever baked into my mind. My family was sleeping on the flat lower roof of our home, with the hope that the winds might take pity upon us and send us a fleeting breeze to cool a few beads of sweat for even a second. The full expanse of the sky seemed to be lying on top of me, pressing the heat into my body. My sweat collected on my back and then dripped off onto my reed mat as if the sky had squeezed the drops from me.
I had dreamed that same dream again: the one where I rode a strange creature that Baskrod called a “lion” through the streets of a great city. Now I lay awake studying the pictures Baskrod had shown me in the sky. The stars seemed brighter and closer to the earth than usual. I located the Lion Constellation and traced the path of stars that formed the body. They spread out to the east, as if crouching to leap into the western sky.
The sound of my mother stirring nearby seeped into my thoughts. She rose and padded across the rooftop, placing her small webbed feet carefully, so as not to awaken my brothers, my sister, and me. She was probably thirsty. I knew I was. I thought about following her but instead returned my attention to the stars, which formed a bridge across the sky.
When she returned, she knelt beside me and handed me a cup of water. “Try to get your sleep Amanki. In the morning, the harvest begins,” she whispered.
“All right, Mother. Thank you.”
I drank the water, and pretended to go back to sleep. In Arvuk, sons of farmers grew up, found a wife, and then farmed the field that their father’s fathers had farmed. They did not study the stars, except to learn basic things like when to plant crops. My desire to learn had always made my mother fear that I would try to overreach my position in life. To do so was a dangerous thing. My yearning to know more tugged at the ropes that anchored me to all that was familiar. Yet I had been unwilling to leave with Baskrod, at least until after harvest.
I withered under the heat until I heard the deep, even breaths of my mother’s sleep return. Then, wearing only my knee-length linen tunic, I carefully picked my way across the rooftop past her and my siblings, down the stairs, and out into our courtyard. Quietly, so as not to awaken the oxen and sheep sleeping in the backroom, I poured another drink of water from one of the clay jars in the corner. Feeling refreshed, I headed out of my home, away from the clusters of brick houses, and into the fields of barley that had ripened to the point that the color matched my hair.
On that cloudless night, I was restless. Every year, the closer to harvest time, the more intensely I felt the tension in my shoulders. It was as if I was carrying a bale of barley on my back. Much of the hard physical labor was over, so one would think I would relax, but I knew that if the wild winds were to awaken, it would be on a night like tonight. Those gentle, cooling breezes we longed for could come and flee, intensifying without warning, letting loose the boozing Berserker. When this happened, the storm god would fill the cup that was our land until the river was so inebriated that it swirled over its low banks forgetting all inhibitions in its drunken rage. Older villagers told of times when the Berserker had whipped Ansul, the river god, into such a frenzy that he had swallowed the houses, crops, and lives of entire villages. Homes that had kept people safe one moment had disintegrated into a muddy goo the next.
I was anxious for the dawn to come. Then my brothers, cousins, and I would grab our sickles and begin swiping the grain together. At last, the air would be filled with the happy songs of harvest.
As I walked between the irrigated fields, I paused to scoop up some cool mud with one of my duck-like feet and then poured the wet earth across the top of the other. The mud felt soothing on the broad webs of skin connecting my long toes as I stretched them. Looking up, I gazed out across the moonlit land. Like dough that had been rolled out flat to the ends of a hearthstone, the mud covered plains spread to touch the sky at the edges. Unless men could find a way to divine the future, the sky would never offer enough warning to them. The killing storms always moved in so quickly that nobody could outrun them. Here in Arvuk, there was no higher ground to which we could escape.
I shifted my shoulders and focused on the stars above. That’s when I first saw the new star, shining brightly. It appeared out of nowhere. This was not the barley star, which had risen in the sky the week before. No, this was different. This star was in the Duck Constellation just as Baskrod predicted. It must be the star from the prophecy, I thought excitedly. It was brighter than any of the other stars and almost seemed to breathe. Baskrod would want to know about this star.
I changed my path and turned to follow the sun baked trails between the irrigated fields, toward Baskrod’s hut, which was in the reeds by the river just beyond the northeastern edge of the village. A dream had first led me to Baskrod when I was a small boy. Every summer since, I had spent many happy mornings after the harvest was complete, fishing with Baskrod on his boat in the Lanaduk River. On those trips, Baskrod had taught me more than just how to fish by throwing a net and how to sail by watching the stars. I had learned about the waters below and the waters above, but I still longed to learn the deeper secrets hidden in the canopy of myriad stars and in the caverns of my repetitive dreams.
Although Baskrod was like a grandfather to me, the other villagers had always disliked him. Their hostility had formed not just because he was a foreigner with slender feet and un-webbed toes, but because he worshiped Adon, a faceless god who ruled over all. Each year, after the harvest festival, Baskrod appeared bringing fascinating stories of faraway places. When the time came, I hurried down to the village courtyard knowing I would find him cheerily selling fresh and dried fish from baskets as he stood leaning on his fishing trident. He wore a white fringed robe of linen over a red tunic of shimmering cloth and a red cap of felt with its top curled forward. His white braided wishbone beard almost reached his waist.
After staying for a turn of the moon, Baskrod sailed away but always reappeared the next summer as promised. I listened with interest as he described strange lands where huge trees and rocks practically reached the stars.
But this year, so much had been different. He had arrived early, before the harvest. Standing in the courtyard, he had warned passersby that fleet footed enemies would descend on the people of Arvuk, skin them, and drink their blood. What made matters worse, he attempted to convince the men of our village that these destroyers were being sent upon orders of Emperor Zoltov. For years, my people had lived in peace along the Lanaduk River under the protection of the great emperor, because we always paid the full tribute of barley. The emperor would have no reason to turn against us, especially just before harvest. It made no sense at all.
Frustrated when nobody would listen, Baskrod had stopped selling fish. Instead, he stood shaking his trident in the air as people passed by: “Run for the water! Escape while you can!” he cried.
I had asked Baskrod if he had foreseen in the stars the arrival of these demons. With a faraway look on his face, in a haunted voice, he had answered, “No, I have seen them on the ground. Amanki, you must believe me. Leave with me, while you still can.”
I would have more easily believed his prediction if he had divined it from the stars. My mother and oldest brother ordered me to stay away from him. They, along with many others, thought he had either lost his mind or had become a dangerous dissident. I did not know what to think, so I chose not to think. For weeks, my denial had felt like soothing mud, but it was really a quicksand that had sucked me down into its depths.
If only we had believed.
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When the deluge came that night, it came more quickly than the Berserker. I had almost reached Baskrod’s hut with my news of the star when I heard from the north a distant noise like thunder that just kept coming. The ground shook below me. I froze in fear. In the light of the moon, the field seemed to wash toward me. A wave of beasts covered in mud rapidly bore down upon me. Blood rushed to my feet. My heart started pounding. I took off in a run, but in my haste, I tripped. I landed headlong in a shallow irrigation ditch, splattering mud everywhere.
They were upon me. I heard the stampeding beasts’ hooves beat like drums to my back, side and then front, above and all around me. I lay flat, not daring to look up. Clods of dirt hit my backside, and the mud in the ditch oozed across my body as I prayed to Adon that I would not be crushed. The beasts snorted, grunted, and yelled, their voices at times sounding almost like us.
Soon these sounds were joined by frightened screams coming from my village. I didn’t dare to even breathe. I wanted to get up and run back to my family, but kept telling myself, Wait, be still, wait. As I lay in the mud, terrified, for what seemed like the turn of a new moon, I realized that I had left my house without my slings, so I had nothing to use as a weapon. I felt like a coward. At least I could try to warn the others. But no, the time for warning was past. Baskrod had tried, and nobody had listened. Now, like the Berserker himself, the beasts had overflowed across our village, leaving us no time to escape.
I must do something. If I remained hidden, the beasts might come back in my direction, find and kill me, or crush me underfoot. I pushed up from the mud, wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands, glanced behind me, and then crept along the ditch for a better view of my village. It was inundated by “mud beasts.” They had surrounded my house and the other houses. The large fleet footed beasts had four skinny legs and long haired tails. These must be what Baskrod calls horses. Both the animals and their riders had manes on their heads. Logic told me they must be separate beings, yet their seamless movement made them seem like one.
Some villagers were bombarding the invaders with stones from their rooftops, but the horse warriors picked them off with their arrows. Stricken men fell from the rooftops. Houses went up in flames, causing the inhabitants to run out into the night.
I watched in horror as my brother, Agga, ran out of our door, swinging a sickle around his head menacingly. One of the raiders on horseback charged at Agga and struck him with an axe. He went as stiff as if he had been shot with an arrow between the eyes and fell backward while a torrent of blood spouted from his body. At first I froze, but then I saw my mother come running out of the house toward my fallen brother. Like a snake’s tongue, a long cord rapidly flicked from the mud beast and encircled her body. The beast turned, causing her to trip over the cord and fall to the ground. As she was dragged toward a spot where other captives had been pulled, I felt as if my heart was being dragged out of my body.
My feet finally went into motion, as if on their own. I raced toward my mother, ignoring the havoc that spread across the fields. I was focused only on a group of mud beasts now encircling some of the captives on the ground. I don’t know what I thought I could do.
I only made it a few steps before something grabbed hold of my arm, swung me around, and threw me to the ground. I flailed my arms and legs at my attacker.
Through my fear I made out the words, “Amanki, you can’t!”
“Baskrod?”
I struggled, but he held my shoulders down with both hands and said, “You can’t save them!”
“I have to try!” I yelled and twisted my body to get free.
Then Baskrod struck me in the face. “It’s too late! We must get to the boat. Run for the river, now!”
He grabbed me by my upper arms, lifted me onto my feet, and pulled me toward the river. How could a crazy old fisherman be so strong? With regret, I realized he was right. I could not save my mother. It was too late. I dashed after Baskrod, back toward the irrigation ditch that ran into the river. As we ran, Baskrod started to fall behind when his strange feet bogged down in the wet mud. Taking the lead, I grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Finally, we collapsed in the thick reeds by the river’s edge, panting for breath.
“Get up,” he rasped, “the boat…”
As I was about to dive into the river, I couldn’t stop myself from looking back from my hiding place in the reeds toward where the raiders had dragged my mother and other captives. Many of these mud covered men who rode with such fluidity had dismounted and gathered around prisoners on the ground. Some carried torches. I searched for my mother among the captives with a mixture of hope and dread.
I immediately wished I hadn't.
One of the men unsheathed a small sword and lifted my mother by her long braided hair. As she struggled to get free from her binds, the man made several slashes along her head and shook her hair violently. Blood flew onto the other prisoners as her scalp separated from her body. She crumpled into the mud.
“Adon, save us! Amanki, we must flee!” Baskrod tried to push me toward the boat.
I held my ground against Baskrod as another mud man leapt from his beast and yelled angrily at the first man. Unthinking, I stood to watch. Was he trying to save my mother? The only hair on top of his head formed a thin line to his neck, like the mane of the beast he had ridden. In the torchlight I could see his thick, dark eyebrows above his deep set piercing eyes. His hooked nose made him resemble a hawk. Golden rings encircled his arms, tight mud-covered trousers girdled his legs, and a coiled rope was wrapped over his shoulder. He held a decorated axe with a curved blade. Without warning, he swung his axe down toward where my mother had fallen. The axe cut through her ankles like a sickle through ripe barley. My knees started to buckle, but Baskrod grabbed my arm and dragged me the last steps to the river.
“Dive!” Baskrod yelled in my ear. Glancing back, I saw mud beasts heading our way. We had been seen.
I dove for the water with Baskrod at my side and we swam for the boat faster than if poisonous snakes were chasing us. Baskrod threw himself into the boat while I yanked up the bag of stones that anchored the boat in place. Then I shoved off from the river and flung myself into the bow of the already moving boat. We both grabbed the oars and pulled with all our might as an arrow whisked past me and a spawn of the beast let out a whoop worse than a wounded mongoose. The mud beasts gathered along the bank, heaving spears, waving axes, and shooting arrows at us. Some even splashed into the water behind us. But we had the lead on them.
The stream of the river caught our boat which rushed forward in the current.
“We made it!” I declared in relief, turning to Baskrod. He was keeled over forward with blood streaming from his body.