An Exile's Curse

The Second Anecdote of The Samyuzot.

The Samyuzot is a set of short stories which follow the life of a cursed warrior, cast off by his people and sent to wander in exile.

This is the second story in the collection.

Every story in the collection is stand-alone. There’s no need to catch up and new readers won’t be lost.

← But if you prefer, you can click here to start at the beginning…

… or you can just keep reading down below. 

The stars enlivened the night Sky, drifting through their courses. Every patch of the heavens was alight with life as the gods danced over their Plains and made their rounds with one another. The moon was a pregnant shape and her fullness cast a glow of life down upon the waiting world. 

Far below was nothing but an endless and black pool broken only by a tiny answering light; beside that light one man—alone as only an accursed samyuzot could be alone—looked up at the night Sky and saw there the wrath and damnation that was now his only inheritance. 

It was not a large campfire. There was little kindling on the Plains below the sacred Skies, so the flame sufficed on dry grasses. These turned to ash in the space of a breath, so the fire’s maker had to keep feeding the light more and more and more just to keep it alive. The sparks rose from the fire to join the stars in their procession. The man’s eyes followed them, but each time he averted his gaze from the panoply above and tried not to think about The Ones Who Looked Down. 

He turned his thoughts instead to the more approximate form of their judgment. 

Setting himself to his task, he revealed one of the two twigs he’d found and stashed away for this very purpose. Two twigs only; he wouldn’t have much time. 

He knelt close. He put the first one in the fire and managed, with more grass, to foster a little fire on its end. Once it was large enough to trust, he lifted it softly to his head and placed it directly on his own scalp. 

There was a hiss—first from the burn but then from between the man’s teeth. 

He flinched and the twig dropped from his fingers. 

His eyes had squeezed closed but he forced them open to find the brand. 

It had landed in the fire. The whole thing was catching. 

“No,” he gasped. 

Then he put his naked fingers into the blaze and lifted the thing back out. He yelped, but he channeled the pain into his muscles and willed his hand to clench harder on the fiery stick. 

The man slapped the brand against the top of his head. In a moment he was howling from the pain, but he pressed, he pressed, he pressed the infernal tool to as much of his scalp as he could. 

The twig crumbled under the force of finger and fire. The man splayed his fingers around his skull and tried to eke the use out of every spark and flame that might fall on his skin. 

The embers subsided. 

He found himself rocking back and forth on his knees. There was a sound needling its way into his thoughts: a whimpering. It came from his own throat. He stilled himself and blinked through cloudy eyes.

He could smell burnt hair: a mercy from the gods above.

Despite the pain emanating from both his palm and his pate, he brushed his hand over his crown. There was still scruff, still too much hair. He had failed.

The man reached down beside him and found the second twig, his last hope. The fingers which grasped it were already swelling from their burns. His whole hand was shaking. 

Then the samyuzot—cursed by the gods and forsaken by his clan—put the twig into the fire and tried again.

✹ ✹ ✹

“Look,” Ruvoz squinted into the morning sun. “There he is again.”

Kolmis looked to where her younger brother was pointing and saw the samyuzot riding over the eastern rise. He wasn’t going quickly, but he was coming toward them. 

Kolmis turned to look behind her down the gentle rise; little Harmanik was down below, herding together the last of the livestock. 

She tried not to show her worry on her face. Her father had given her charge of thirty heads of cattle, but the more troublesome charges were her two brothers. Their journey would last a week, driving the herd to pasture in the greener fields over the River Arn, to lessen the burden on the main grasslands closer to the great-wagons. 

A week away from the tribe. A week with no one except Ruvoz, the headstrong youth, and Harmanik, the boy who worshiped him. 

And now, Kolmis lamented the thought, here was a samyuzot. 

“What do we do?” Ruvoz asked his sister.

“We need to bring the herd that way,” Kolmis nodded eastward. “We’ll wait here and deal with it before we go further.” 

“I can see him off, sister.”

"No. You get Harmanik. Keep the cows down below.”

“I don’t want you here alone. If he comes close—.”

“I told you to go.”

Ruvoz gave an exasperated sigh, but he and his horse turned and disappeared down the slope. Kolmis patted her own mount; the horse had no sense of any danger, but she soothed him anyway. The sun crept upward, the samyuzot drew closer. Kolmis watched them both. The man had clearly spotted her, for he was making a clear line for the ridge. His progress was slow. 

When Ruvoz returned to the crest, his horse was stamping and circling. The teenager held his short-spear, a shepherd’s weapon rather than the lance of a true warrior—not that Kolmis was going to remind her brother of that fact; Ruvoz was in a temper already, and a reminder of his own unfulfilled ambitions would only further sour his restlessness.

“Where is he?” Ruvoz demanded.

“Still a ways off.”

“Is it a dread-shade?” Harmanik asked his siblings. The boy’s question was wrapped in fear which he could not hide. 

“Shades can’t ride horses,” said Ruvoz, “but he’s something worse.”

“What is it?” asked the boy, but neither of his siblings would answer. 

Instead, Ruvoz came close to his sister and spoke to her. His words were low, but there was fire in his voice: “We should kill him.”

“No.”

“Let me do it, Kolmis.”

“No! Do you want the curse of the gods upon you?”

“The gods have already cursed him. They won’t care.”

Kolmis reached out and struck her brother on the shoulder. He flinched and shot her a look, but she was already gazing up at the Sky and muttering a prayer of expiation on her brother’s behalf. 

Only once she had finished did she turn to reprimand her brother:

“Don’t you listen to the Gokte? They’ve cursed that one, yes, but their wrath is a slow and tortuous one. His soul is already forfeit. See his baldness, his uncovered head? They’ve marked him for the Eye of Justice. Do not rob the gods of their vengeance, or else the Eye will fall on us instead. He must wander in exile, far from the Plains of life. When he dies, his spirit will not rise to the Skies with ours and Theirs.”

“He’ll be dirt,” Ruvoz added for his little brother, “and he’ll pass with the dirt. Like an animal.”

“It is a harsh sentence, yes. And we need not curse him any further.”

“What if tries to hurt us?” asked the younger boy. “Will the gods curse us if we fight back?”

“If he breaks any of the sacred laws, then the gods’ vengeance must be upon him. Immediately.”

“Which laws? Like stealing?”

“Skies Above, you boys are useless. Pay attention! If he eats while on the Plains, anything at all… or if he hides his mark by growing his hair or covering his head, then it’s up to us—up to you, Ruvoz—to kill him.”

“But what if he does try to hurt us,” Ruvoz asked. “What would the gods let me do then?”

“Of course the gods want us to defend ourselves against a forsaken one.”

“If he’s an exile,” Harmanik spoke up with a question, “why is he still here on the Plains?” 

For the second time in as many minutes, the older siblings gave no answer. They could only watch, all three of them atop their mounts, as the samyuzot inched closer.

“He’s starving,” said Kolmis.

“If he breaks the laws…” Ruvoz left the sentence hanging.

At last the unwanted traveler neared the bottom of the ridge’s slope, and was near enough for their eyes to take him in: the man was stocky in build, but was clearly thinning; his eyes were sunken in their sockets and his nascent beard intruded upon cracked lips and hollow cheeks; his head was a grotesque patchwork of dark stubble, crimson skin, and swollen blisters; his eyebrows had been burned away; his shoulders slumped. 

But despite all this—and to the great astonishment of the shepherds—this apparition of death sat atop a young, red, and well-muscled stallion. It was a true warhorse, as regal as its rider was ghastly. It had no saddle or tack, but seemed unperturbed at bearing its rider. 

When the horse began to climb up the slope towards them, Kolmis shouted down, louder than was necessary: “Stop there! That’s close enough!”

The man raised a palm in a deferential gesture, then came down from his saddle and raised empty hands again. His eyes drifted to and fro, even as he directed his gaze up the gentle slope. 

“What do you want?” Kolmis demanded just as Ruvoz shouted to him:

“Be gone! Get away from us!”

The newcomer ignored the youth, and looked at Kolmis.

“G—ugh.” the man’s voice caught in his dry throat. He tried again: “Good herdress, please. I need help.”

“I can see you need help. But it is not our part to help you. You are samyuzot.” Kolmis merely stated fact, but the man flinched at the title. She saw then the horrendous state the man was in, and although she knew the will of the gods was immovable and righteous, she felt pity for him. “I am sorry.”

“Please,” he tried again, “my hair. It’s starting to grow. I must shave it.”

“You had better!” Ruvoz broke in, “or else I’ll kill you before the Skies. And take your horse!” 

The man gave a pleading look, but said nothing.

“How is your head my concern?” Kolmis asked the criminal.

“May I borrow a knife?”

“The customs say no, and I will not violate them. So the answer is no.”

“You can have the knife back, I only need to—”

“We cannot let your cursed hands touch our tool. We abide by the laws.”

Ruvoz spoke up again to add: “This is your own problem, not ours; go and solve it on your own, or the curse of the Skies be upon you!”

“I wish to abide by the laws as well,” the man croaked, “but I have no way to keep my mark. They gave me nothing. It will take me days to get to the highlands and—oh!”

He cut his speech when he finally noticed: the young man from atop the ridge had barreled his horse down the slope and was now nearly upon him with a waving short-spear. The vagrant had neither the reflex nor the strength of limb left within him to do anything but fall backwards. He let out a cry as he landed on his rear.

Ruvoz did not try to slay him there, but instead rode in a tight ring around both interloper and warhorse. As he circled, the youth hollered, jabbed his spear down near to his prey, gave incoherent abuse, pounded his own chest, swung his short-spear, shouted again. His mount danced beneath him. Hoofs pounded in a masterful display of control and precision. 

Ruvoz reached out for the warhorse’s mane and only narrowly avoided the stallion’s bite. Only then did he break off his dance. 

He rode his horse a short distance away, and as the thunder of hooves waned, the sound was replaced by a placating whine. 

“Please. I’ll leave. I’ll leave. Please. I’ll leave.”

“Then go,” said the youth.

“I’ll go.”

“Go quickly, samyuzot.”

✹ ✹ ✹

The night stood still, empty, and cool. Under the stars, another campfire burned on the Plains. This one was larger than the one from the prior night, made from materials prepared long before and brought from a more vibrant camp. Three shepherds kept it. First, a boy who slept without care. Second, a woman whose worries made her turn in her sleep. But the third shepherd, the middle child, suffered from a dreadful condition: he yearned to be a warrior. 

He was nearly, but not yet, a man. He wanted to be the strongest of the men, of the sort that wouldn’t flinch at keeping watch all through the night. And tonight there was a threat out in the darkness somewhere: a criminal, cursed by the Skies. So the youth willed himself to stay awake and watch. He wanted to defend his family and flock, to wear war-braids like the men, to fight for the gods. He wanted to wield a lance like his uncles and shoot a bow like the heroes. He wanted a red stallion. 

But he was not a warrior yet; he was a shepherd. Though his body was tall like a man’s, he was still unaccustomed to hardship and sleepless nights. And he was tired. By the time the stars were halfway through their dancing, his waking dreams of heroism gave way to their nocturnal cousins.

✹ ✹ ✹

“Ruvoz, did you take my knife?” Harmanik was in some distress.

“No, I don’t have it,” said his brother.

“Well it’s not on my saddle.”

“I don’t have it either, Harma,” said Kolmis. “You probably dropped it on the way, like you did the last one.”

“I did not!” whined the child. “I know I had it here when I went to sleep. I know I did. I tied it to the pommel just before I laid down.”

Ruvoz teased him with a wagging finger and flashed a wicked smile. “Father’s going to give you a hiding this time!”

“Stoppit! I know I—”

“—Ruvoz.” Something in their sister’s voice caused both brothers to freeze in their places. “The sun woke me this morning. You weren’t the one to wake me.”

“What of it? I didn’t take his—”

“You said you wanted to keep watch. Did you?”

“Well, eventually I…” Ruvoz’s voice trailed off as his thoughts caught up to his tongue.

✹ ✹ ✹

The samyuzot was kneeling in the muddy riverbed without any attention to his soaking trousers. The river was quiet here. He had found a little copse of elms and aspens arranged in a horseshoe, within which was a scar of the river’s old meandering, now just a gentle beach lowering into the river itself. Surrounded on three sides by the terraced trees, this spot was as out of sight as he could be, so the vagrant had waded in as soon as there was sufficient light.

He hurried against the dawn and the damnation of the gods. His horse waited nearby, confused by his master’s mood.

He scraped the blade over his head, dipped it in the water, scraped again. Without a mirror he had no method to track his work except the feel of his fingers. The knife was not well-sharpened. He had no animal fat or oil to grease the knife’s path. Nothing to smooth the blade over the blisters and burns. Nor did he have the luxury of time.

It was a painful, gory affair. 

He hacked at his scalp as if it was his hair and not the knife that was causing his agony. Blood dripped from where the skin split and detached. River-water fell from his hands and wrists and flushed the blood down his face, neck, shoulders, back, hips, and into the river again.

When the sun rose through the trees its light fell upon a bald and bloodied head, and—for a single moment—the samyuzot felt relief. He had kept the laws. He could still abide by them. He could do his duty.

It was only a moment.

“Thief!” The word boomed over the little beach. 

The man spun up in fright. 

“Curse you, samyuzot!” 

The exile peered against the dawn-light at the silhouette, but who else could it be? The youth was lifting his short-spear once again and spurring his horse down from within the trees, upon the beach below, and straight at the man in the shallows. 

The samyuzot moved to flee, but his legs were tired and cramped from crouching. A week or more without food added further ache. Red water splashed against his legs and worked against his efforts. He didn’t make it far before the shepherd’s horse bore down on him. 

The spearhead came near as the youthful rider stretched to reach him—but striking a moving man from the saddle of a cantering horse is no easy feat. It is far easier, if a man is practiced, to grasp the arm of an unbalanced rider and pull him down from his horse.

The samyuzot seized him. Ruvoz crashed into the river. 

Awash in the spray, the teenager panicked and sloshed around for his spear. He couldn’t find it. Panic flooded through his limbs. His arms toiled in the muddy riverbed as he blinked through his wet hair and tried to spy his attacker. 

The exile scrambled out of the water and onto the beach. A safe distance away. “Here!” He called to the youth and held out his knife.  “You can take it back. I don’t need it anymore. I’ll have a few days to find a highland village and I can get a new one there.” 

Ruvoz stood up in the water, empty handed. He had not found his spear. He was covered in mud. His quarry was still covered in blood. They spoke to each other through panted breaths.

“I will cross the river,” said the samyuzot. “I am leaving the Plains. Take the knife back.”

Ruvoz began to step closer to the man. He went slowly, but as he walked he pulled a blade of his own from within his belt. “This knife is unsullied from cursed hands. You stole from us. Your life is over.”

“Just take it back. And we both go. In peace.” The man was stepping backwards, onto the beach. 

“I am going to kill you, samyuzot.”

“This may not go the way you hope.” They were both on the beach now. “Trust me when I say that, boy.”

At that word—boy—the youth raged. He shot himself forward with a yell, blade outstretched before him.

The samyuzot had little strength left in his limbs, but what little he had combined with instincts honed in battle, and it was enough. A sweeping motion with his off-hand was all it took to deflect the young man’s outstretched weapon. Wrist against wrist. One blade went wide and into thin air; the other came up from below and into flesh.

It was over in an instant. 

The youth gasped, and tried to recover by sending another stab at the vagrant, but by now the older man had grappled the teenager’s knife-arm and it could not bend the way the youth wanted.

Ruvoz fell. The samyuzot fell nearly on top of him, still grappling. The warrior slicked his knife out of his enemy’s gut and shoved it back in—higher, deeper—under the ribcage. Then a third strike, mangling within. Then a fourth, moving higher. A fifth, into the armpit, slicing, opening. By the sixth, the youth’s resistance was fading.

“I’m sorry,” whispered the man. 

Ruvoz gasped in his face. Spittle landed in his killer’s beard.

“I’m sorry.” 

There was a long, dark moment of hate and the firstfruits of regret.

When open eyes saw no more, the samyuzot finally relented and rolled over into a heap beside the body. Breath returned to him. He calmed his shaking hand. He stood.

And saw the other rider in the trees. The older one, the woman. 

She sat there on her horse. Her dark hair moved gently in the wind. Her eyes were massive on her face and her whole being was as still as stone.

She took in the sight of the shirtless starving man soaked from head to knee in water and the blood of her kin and she was silent. She looked at the fiend who had killed her brother before her eyes and she understood then that when the gods of the Sky had carved out the ice-pits under the earth as a place to punish and torture the evildoers, they had done so because they were good and benevolent gods. She understood then that the wrath of the Eye of Justice was unrelenting and permanent because some crimes were unrelenting and permanent. Some things cannot be undone. She knew now that the gods cursed some men because the whole life-age of this earth could not be enough time to punish every evil. And this demon before her—worse indeed than a dread-shade like her brother had said—deserved worse than to pass away with the dirt of this world; but she would nonetheless watch with glee from the Skies beside the stars and the souls of her kindred as this blight of a man passed into nothingness with this earth until every trace of him was gone forever and only the Skies remained. And she would rejoice and praise The Ones Who Look Down for every moment of this man’s suffering between now and then. Because that would be Just. Because that would be fair. Because her brother was dead. Because she loved him. And because over his body stood a traitor, a thief, a murderer, a samyuzot. 

Harmanik came up beside his sister. He understood none of this. He howled. He charged down the slope and his sister could not stop him. 

The man on the beach ran from the boy and to his own horse. He hobbled onto its bare back, kicked its sides, and fled. His clothes were still on the riverbank, but the knife was still in his hand. 

✹ ✹ ✹

The samyuzot rode until he could no longer hear the boy’s cries. Then he turned and rode into the river until he was washed from his horse and they both had to swim. They came, nearly drowned, to the far shore. 

The exile splayed out on the foreign soil. He gazed up at the sun and saw the profane sky above him. He was beyond the Plains of life now—out from under the sacred Skies. But still beneath the sight of the gods. 

The sun glared down and his skin dried. But the blood was still upon him.

✹ ✹ ✹

So ends the samyuzot’s journey into exile, and now begins his wandering in the foreign “highlands.” Brighter times will come for our wanderer, though after today I’m not sure that’s saying much. 

Want more of The Samyuzot?

The third anecdote will be released here, at Falden’s Forge, and sent directly to your inbox on Tuesday, December 3rd.

← Or read the first story: The First Death of Segitars Arpadi.

You can also find all the stories, once they’re released on this page, along with the rest of my writing. 

If you like what you’ve read here and want me to keep making stuff like this, you can help me do that by liking, commenting, or sharing this post. Better yet, tell a friend about it. Thanks for reading.

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