The Goer

By Mattias M.

Rejecting her home and leaving behind all she knows, a warrior travels far and wide. She gains magic as she moves, but wonders if she can ever be still again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365146749

Book preview

2016

Chapter One

Rock heaves out of ocean.

Wearying, the upheaval rests and sprouts green.

From the ground come flying beasts to shelter in the green, and beasts with fur and hooves to flit through its shadows.

Only then comes the human, on soft feet—to watch the wheeling of the sky and the circuits of the sun; to wail and laugh at the storm, or be as silent

as they can bear; to eat the red meat of creatures, and marvel as they eat.

All of this has its time in the life of compassionate earth, as mountains pierce the ocean’s skin, gasp, and gasp their last.

The hooves of the boar-like javelina pounded the rocky ground, propelled by the pain of an obsidian arrow driving ever deeper into its flank. At its right were the cliffs of the Stone Isle’s central peak. At its rear, and the cusp of its awareness, a pair of hunters stole across the jungle’s loam.

A humid wind blew up from the jungle, but the javelina could not catch the scent of its band. The arrow had stung at it from the trees. It knew danger was close, must be close, but could not place it. The initial charge had spent its vigour. It slowed. It stopped. With a muddled grunt, it turned and tumbled into the jungle. Its two pursuers vanished with it.

Jia, just beyond childhood, took cover with her father in a patch of foliage at the edge of a clearing. In the middle was a still pond, cradled by a shallow fold in the slope’s descent. Just as they settled in together to wait, the javelina burst into the clearing, panting, and heaved down at the pond to drink. As one motion, her father Tokkil took the bow from his shoulder and pressed it into Jia’s hand.

The heart, he mouthed. Jia nodded to him as her fingers took the bow. The arrow fell into place and the string tightened. Jia’s eyes locked with the beast’s body where the first arrow was lodged. For the next to kill, it would have to strike a finger’s breadth closer to the neck.

The leaves that hid Jia also hindered her shot. As she moved to peer over a waving branch, her new footing broke a twig. The javelina’s head swung about at the noise.

Jia’s arrow struck out by instinct. It sailed high through the foliage and embedded itself in the ridge of the beast’s spine.

It squealed and slipped, churning the water as it sank and thrashed into it. Go! Tokkil shouted, the command clipped for want of breath as he ran to catch their quarry. The beast was beyond Tokkil’s reach before he could give a proper thrust with his spear.

Jia was already sprinting toward the far side of the pond. She stumbled to a halt ahead of the javelina. The water frothed red as its front hooves grappled with the bank.

Take him! Tokkil shouted. He cast the spear sideward to her from the other edge of the pond. The bow dropped from Jia’s hand as she fumbled for the spear. The haft bounced from her sweaty palm and into the tall grass.

Jia was on her feet in time to see the javelina plant its hooves on firm ground. Hesitation softened her stance as the javelina took a few steps more. Seeing her fully, it snorted blood and charged. In an instant, its hide was pierced between skull and shoulder as its body caught Jia’s spear-point. She pressed forward with all her strength, a feral squeal of defeat shaking the haft and her body, the stone edge driving deeper into living flesh.

Blood and spittle pulsed into the forest grass. Each wave poured out a little weaker than the last as the beast’s grunting, once booming with fear and rage, now took on a husky strain of submission. Jia released her grip and watched the silent body slap onto the mud.

Tokkil was cheering for her as he waded through the water to take the body by its haunches before the rest of the body could slide back into the water. Jia remembered herself enough to help. She found a grip around the collar, just after the last row of hard molars. As she fought for grip, the wide, dull teeth bruised her hands.

Slipping and flailing in the mud, Jia struggled with her father to hoist the mass on shore. Once Tokkil was high enough to dig his feet into ground, he used this purchase to give it a final push and send it sliding across the mud.

As Jia took it by its front legs to haul it the last few steps to dry ground, her father came up behind her and embraced her. Jia slipped, startled, and they fell. Tokkil erupted with laughter, rolling onto his back to show his teeth to the sky. Jia did the same at his side. Between bursts of laughter, Tokkil tousled his daughter’s close-shorn hair and gleamed.

There’s no-one I would trust more on the hunt, he said.

As the elation in Jia’s heart ebbed to exhaustion, she rose and went to stand before the corpse. The eyes had already begun to glaze over. A clump of shrub clung to the marble. Jia resisted the urge to pluck out the debris, reminding herself that the beast would gain nothing from it. The body was only harvest now: lean flesh for feasting, bone for tools and fortunes, offal for food and skins and medicine. Her body fought against the return of calm, berating her for her errors and hesitations. The kill had been too far from clean.

Tokkil knelt at the corpse and murmured the ancient blessing. The defeated feed the victor’s strength, he recited. Let it always run so. Each of them dipped their fingers in the javelina’s blood and painted a single stroke of it across the other’s forehead. The custom gave relief to Jia’s nerves.

Tokkil sent her to fetch some helpers from the village. Jia sprinted through the brush, calling out with all her breath as she drew near. Before she could enter the village, her call was answered by two warriors of the Tahga.

What is it, girl? Tawa asked. Jia fought with her voice—it wavered between timidity and euphoria. She was still caked with the mud of the javelina’s pond.

Oh, Tokkil has got something! Zulec said, managing to catch Jia’s drift. He was the more wiry of the two warriors, with flowing hair that went down to his shoulders. Knowing him, it will be worth the effort to bring it in. It is nearly mealtime, is it not?

Jia led the two back in the direction of the site. Once they were close enough that Jia could point the way, the pair carried on ahead of her at a trot. Jia struggled to keep up. Her legs screamed their exhaustion.

On arriving, Tawa and Zulec gave Tokkil their congratulations. With this concluded, they lashed their three spears into a bundle and bound the javelina’s legs to it. The two warriors’ muscle was more than enough to carry the prize back to the village.

Tokkil and Jia hung back, the warriors’ conversation fading, muffled by the foliage as they remained just within eyeshot behind them. You did well today, Tokkil said.

Jia swelled at her father’s praise. Do you think they will let me become a warrior?

The decision is theirs, but I’m sure it will be handed to us soon. You must be ready when it does. To refuse the ceremony is a greater disgrace than to fail it.

Jia glanced at her father’s face. She could not find the flicker of pride she sought. Do you fear for me, father?

Tokkil held a grim silence. Men are not like the javelina, he said. This one broke from the herd. Our enemies will not. This one fled from our arrows; our enemies will not. This one let down his guard…

You’re wrong, Jia protested. "Men do flee. The war-songs tell that when we attacked Sul in all our island’s numbers, their armies turned their feet away from us in fear. We chased them into the desert and cut them down in droves."

The enemy will march on us louder and stronger than that, Tokkil said. Never count your foes fewer than they are, or the day may come when it is your feet that turn in fear.

That will never be, she spat. When have you seen a warrior of the Tahga falter? I’d die before making myself the first.

Don’t let your spirit run ahead of your body.

"My body is my spirit. I do not fear battle."

How can one fear what one has not met? Zulec called back. Tawa’s booming laughter followed these words. Jia flushed with embarrassment.

Your daughter is a sufficient runner, Tawa added in his broad voice, but battle would surely break her. Such boasts give no distinction among youngsters. Their words melt away before the fury of the clash.

They won’t, Jia murmured, her voice quavering. She waited for some defence from her father. None came.

Zulec laughed again. All the same, I hope you hold onto that attitude if you do join our ranks. I certainly would not prevent one such as you from charging the fray ahead of me, not least if there were arrows flying.

Jia fell to watching the jungle floor as she struggled with anger at her father. The air was charged as they went on.

I know you are strong, my daughter, Tokkil said after some moments. You kill javelinas well enough, but I wonder if you will have the strength to end the lives of men.

It is easier to kill men, Jia spat out. There is cowardice in their eyes that would bring shame to a javelina.

At this, the laughter of the warriors rang out in a brighter tone. You ought to put more trust in your daughter, Tokkil, Tawa said. She may discredit your judgement.

Jia’s father did not reply, but she saw the smile that played at the corners of his mouth.

~

That afternoon, father and daughter sparred on the beach outside their village. Jia poured fury into her movements as their duelling staffs clashed. She was in good form, fighting with few errors, but those she did make were punished all the more harshly.

With each defeat Tokkil rapped one end of the bare wooden staff against Jia’s skin. Jia grew wearier as the fighting went on until a field of welts bloomed on her arms and chest. Her patience gone, she focused her rage in a flurry of attacks—first feinting for his chest, then tossing the defending blow aside and bringing the end of her staff up from below to press against the soft floor of his jaw.

Tokkil’s head remained high as a low laugh echoed out of him. You are very much my daughter, he said.

She lowered the weapon with a challenging smile. Could you doubt it?

Let us go. A light shone in his eyes as he led them back toward the village. It will soon be time to eat.

The javelina was to be prepared in a feast. Jia could already catch the scent of its juices from the spit at the centre of camp. The villagers were laying out courses on palm leaves, but Jia’s father diverted her from the feasting circle and took her back to their hut of clay and thatched grass. Her mother Namra waited there with leaves of cool yam mash and dried sardine.

Tokkil sat down cross-legged on the floor. Jia followed him in this and they began to eat. From beyond the grass curtain, a little firelight flickered across their faces and gave colour to the washed-out orange and yellow hues that lay between them. Jia ate with all the appetite she could muster, but her belly goaded her for the flesh of the javelina that sizzled in the heart of the village. Only once the leaves were nearly empty did she gather the courage to speak.

Father, she whispered, am I being punished?

A rumbling sigh came from her father’s motionless form. No, child, he said—and nothing more. His reply hung in the air like an unsolved riddle.

Outside, the celebration became silent. The voice that took its place was picked up by all the villagers in turn. Backed by the steady beat of a hand drum, the pulse built and towered over the people and their huts. A woman’s wail separated from the throng of shared tones, taking shape as a call to the Isle’s Spirit for blood. A pang of fear took hold on Jia’s heart as she heard the chieftain’s utterance, broad and booming, of her own name.

Her parents rose to their feet. Jia’s body did the same. Before her father spoke, she knew what his words would be. They were part of a ritual as old as the seasons.

Jia, my daughter, are you ready to test your spirit and claim your inheritance?

His voice was cool and calm, with no hint of apprehension or anticipation. I am, Jia replied.

Then come and take the footsteps that separate warrior-to-be from warrior-that-is.

Tokkil went to the curtain and brushed it aside for her. Zulec and Tawa had been keeping watch beyond it. As she exited, they bowed to her and took hold of her arms to lead her to the circle.

Before they had gone a few steps, Namra stumbled out of the hut and ran to her. She called her name in hopeless fear. Jia turned to her as much as Zulec and Tawa would allow. Tokkil seized Namra around the stomach before she could come to her.

She cannot think of your grief, he growled. Let her be.

Jia looked at her mother. Now, in the better light, she could see the fear awash in her eyes and the trails of tear-stained skin tracing down her cheeks.

It’s all right, Mother, Jia said softly. I will bring you pride.

I am proud of you already, Namra sobbed. Tokkil met his daughter’s uncertain glance with one of urgent resolve. Jia did her best to match it as she turned back toward the circle and let the warriors lead her on.

The sounds of the village boiled ever higher around them. Around the bonfire, a wide circle had been swept down to dust and covered with a thatched floor, its perimeter marked with boundary stones. At the far edge of the firelight hung the silhouette of a prisoner and the warrior who guarded him. As Jia searched this silhouette for detail, Chieftain Hatma held up an open hand to commence the ceremony.

Jia, he boomed, Son of Tokkil and daughter of Namra, do you stand ready for the warrior’s trial?

I do, she replied. A whoop erupted from the assembly. It came swiftly and sharply, as one voice, and vanished just as quickly.

Do you swear to forfeit blood, flesh, and life in service of our people’s strength?

I swear it. Another whoop broke out.

Will you charge into the teeth of shadow to sever limbs and crush bone, to spill defeated blood and burn defeated lands, to keep the Spirit of the Isle whole and strong and alive?

The drummer pounded out a rhythm that grew in strength as Hatma approached the climax of his challenge. The percussion stopped short in expectation of Jia’s reply.

It came strong and clear. The assembly erupted into cheers.

Bring them forward! the chieftain shouted over the din. Jia was led a few steps farther to the edge of a circle of boundary stones. Jia and the sacrifice were given their spears in the same moment. Each were released and allowed to approach.

Jia watched her opponent. His eyes swam in their orbits like frightened minnows, darting from fixation to fixation without ever quite coming to rest. His gaze fell on every aspect of the village, the circle, and the gathered crowd without ever seeming to alight on Jia. The boy was well-muscled but smooth of skin, a combination that spoke of the life of a housebound slave. By the manner he held his spear, Jia started to question if this one had seen battle at all.

The two stopped and faced each other. The sacrifice’s eyes were downcast as Hatma continued the rites.

The outlander was to be sacrificed to Jia, the rising spirit. The Tahga were a people as strong as the Isle that bore them, their warriors the mightiest ever to be chiseled from the earth. Yet with every new warrior, there was always the possibility of a flaw in the stone. The initiate would have to be tested in equal combat with an outlander. Only his blood could prove her worthy of a warrior’s inheritance.

Jia had seen the custom. The sacrifice was to be the strongest that Tahga warriors could pin to the ground. The two would spar for minute after bloodstained minute as the initiate’s discipline sapped the strength of their opponent. When every ounce of weakness had been drawn out into the firelight, then the sacrifice would be ready for the killing blow.

Jia watched him with disdain as the chieftain continued. The sacrifice shivered, shifted his weight, and readjusted his grip. The final rites ended and Hatma raised his massive arms, the assembly joining once again in the voice that had opened the ceremony.

The hand-drummer took to his instrument with great fury, his rhythm increasing as the chieftain’s arms rose. Once the chieftain’s hands were fully above him, they shook and a deep rumble issued forth from his chest. Jia focused on her opponent and her opponent at last did the same.

Hatma’s hands fell. The assembly and the drum fell silent. Jia lunged.

The sacrifice dodged the first strike but not the second. Jia focused all the strength in her body on driving the point between his ribs and deep into his vitals.

The sacrifice flailed with his spear, his eyes blank with shock. Jia ignored his seizing even as one pass caught on her face and raised a bloody gash. Still the spear drove deeper. There was no need for another thrust.

Jia planted a foot on the outlander’s chest and wrenched out the spear. Even the jungle was silent as Jia returned to the passive stance, her heart pounding as never before.

She scanned the faces in the assembly for some response. Was it truly an honourable kill? she wondered. Had it been too swift, too proud, too impetuous?

No, the crowd answered as one, erupting into joyful shouts as the Stone Warriors surged forward to welcome their newest member. Molec, son of the Chieftain and leader of the warriors, embraced her. Tawa stole her from that embrace and first he, then the group, hoisted her onto their shoulders.

The rest of the village crowded around the cordon her new comrades had made. The sacrifice’s body was dragged out of the firelight, where it would be given to the earth and forgotten.

Jia once spotted her father’s face in the crowd. She did not see it again for the rest of the evening. She was surrounded by revelry, feasting, and smiling faces, but a cold stone seemed to rest in her heart, as the mountain that rested in the centre of her people’s island. Whenever she smiled, a crescent of pain leered back at her from the torn skin between the corner of her nose and the join of her lip; and a drop of blood, the price and token of her victory, crept across her skin and placed its iron kiss on her mouth.

Chapter Two

In two years, the scar had sealed into the shape of a broken branch that stood out in pale pink against the olive backdrop of Jia’s skin. Raids against the many outlanders of the far shores had made her body taut. Her knuckles were harder, her brow grimmer. Irises glimmered like tree-sap in her cautious eyes. There were new scars on her chest and hands, all won in duels with fellow warriors. No more came from the throes of soft outlanders.

It was mid-morning, the wind from the ocean warm and lively. Jia made circles on the shore of her village, looking for meaningful work. Tawa sparred with the warrior Duaxil while Zulec fed the beach fire. Molec spoke in hushed tones with a young initiate named Kalib. The boy was filled with questions, and rightly so. Even the veterans had cause for uncertainty.

Dawn had come with the promise of blood. Sul, the nation of the near mainland, was bound by the terms of its defeat to send a yearly tribute of fine cloth, slaves, and precious stones to the village of Noxaca. It had arrived a day ago with no slaves, and in such shallow draft that it bounced on the surf. Swift boats carried Noxaca’s heralds around the island with his rallying call. An alliance would be formed to go to Sul in force and Jia, with her comrades and distant kin, would have a chance to address the outlanders’ insult.

Jia remembered the leather binding straps her people used for slave-taking. Going to her canoe with a bundle of them, she was stopped by a touch on the arm.

Don’t take those, Molec said. We will take no prisoners this time.

Jia frowned. Then what profit will it be?

If we are offered slaves, they will already be bound. This will not be a raid, as you are accustomed to. Molec looked past her shoulder toward the village where his father drew near, arms rising in praise to all. Load only food, medicine, weapons… Whatever we need to care for ourselves. Chieftain Noxaca will see to the rest.

Jia nodded and turned on her heel. Returning to the village, she heard the chieftain’s oration with one ear. Hatma praised the sharpness and valour of his warriors and the glory of the deeds they were soon to perform.

Jia returned to see Hatma’s words at their end. He strode forward, gleaming, to place a bundle of arrows in his son’s canoe. His warriors thanked and embraced him and he gave them a few final praises, the grandiose tone sighing out of him as he spoke. It was no secret that he had become too old to fight. With his role in the preparations completed, Hatma rested on a log at the edge of the beach and watched.

Molec completed his father’s work, running between shore and village until drenched in sweat. Jia joined her usual comrades: the warriors Tawa, Zulec, and Duaxil, and Kalib. Kalib was five seasons younger than Jia, not yet a full warrior. He would come with them only as sentry and errand-runner.

To release the nervousness in her body, Jia sparred with her comrades. She could always evade Tawa’s spear-haft, but whenever she got close enough to strike he would use his wide frame to knock her into the sand. Halfway to midday, Tokkil emerged onto the beach from the brush just outside the village. Finding Molec in the crowd, he glared and called out his name.

Molec turned to him. Tokkil raised his arms, both heavy with game birds.

Enough? he demanded.

Molec stared at him, flustered. He looked about at the other warriors, who made a point of averting their eyes. Finally Molec looked to his father. Hatma looked to Tokkil and gave a heavy nod. Tokkil nodded back, and faded into the brush.

With the preparations at their end, mothers, wives, and children ran forth with flowery garlands to wish good fortune on the warriors. Jia’s mother emerged from the clamour to take her up in her embrace.

Be honourable, she said tearfully. Protect yourself and your brethren. We will wait in agony for your return.

Jia scanned the shore over her mother’s shoulder. Mother, where is Father? she asked.

She shook her head with a quiet smile. I’m sorry, but he is still out hunting. He wishes you well.

Jia disentangled herself. I saw him just an hour ago. He had all the game he could carry.

My daughter—

Before she could continue, Jia ran past her into the village.

Reaching her family’s hut, Jia brushed aside the leaf curtain at the entrance to peer into the murky interior, shielded from light if not heat and humidity. It was only by her father’s musk and laboured breathing that she could identify his silhouette. He sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, nursing a gourd of fermented yam.

Father, Jia greeted.

He nodded, a splash of sunlight reaching him from the entrance. Hello, Jia.

The boats are about to leave.

I know.

You know. Jia nodded, searching for words. This will be my first time sailing on Sul. I may not return. I wonder if you would want the chance to say any final words to ears that can still hear.

No reply came. Sound rushed in to fill the silence her words had left in their wake, the ocean wind testing the village’s walls and eddying in its open spaces. It carried on its back the utterance of names. One of them was hers. Once she was certain her father’s stillness would hold, Jia muttered a terse farewell and turned away.

Jia, Tokkil rumbled. She froze. The name of the Tahga was once sacred. Not only on this island, but across all the length of the near shore and all the water within a moon’s voyage.

Jia looked back at him. It is sacred still, she murmured. It is more to me than my own soul.

We once took what was ours. There was no need for tribute, no tallies to keep or alliances to make. We were our own law.

Power is power, Jia said. If you have a grievance, tell it to Hatma, not me.

You can tell me what you remember of warrior’s ways. Tokkil rose to his feet but remained in the same place. In days long past a Stone Warrior, man or woman, belonged fully to the island. Now it seems a girl—he lingered on the word—might fight to earn the notice of the chieftain’s son. She might become his wife and bear children to him. Then she could return to this island a mother and forget her oaths to the Spirit.

Jia was stunned. She drew herself up to her sharpest military posture. Her answer came as coldly as the depths.

I fight for my nation. You hunt javelinas. I hunt man, and I hunt them well. I will be killing outlanders long after you die, alongside warriors far better than you.

She left him then, Tokkil muttering something and returning to the floor. A